Book Review: Sobriety Demystified
Here's a book review I wrote just after finshing
to read Sobriety Demystified by Byron A. Lewis.
Be well,
-Bernard Frit
Sobriety Demystified, Vol 1
---------------------------
by Byron A. Lewis, 1996, Kelsey & Co Publishing
ISBN 1-887338-00-4, 240 pages, illustrated.
Getting clean and sober with NLP and CBT.
Professional Counselor Handbooks, Vol 1.
This book is exactly what it is claimed to be: a handbook for
professional counselors involved in the usual sobriety quest
when dealingwith addicts.
Different readers will find different things. The experienced counselors
will find up to date data about the scientific and medical foundations of
addictions. The NLPers will find interesting information about the
relationships between NLP and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Those who are new to addictions will find an exhaustive presentation
of what's going on in the world of addiction and recovery such as how
to deal with AA groups, how to find alternative groups to AA and so on.
In fact this book is a kind of a cross-road from where you can choose
different ways to go ahead and collect more information. Each
chapter is clearly documented and you will find easily any further
references you will need. The author has obviously spent a lot of time
collecting all the data included.
Reading this book, I found some unique information and much of it is
closely related to the author's own experiences:
- the author's own interpretation of the 12 steps and what they mean
at each step of the recovery process.
- an interesting relation between the 12 steps and the
logical levels from Dilts and Bateson.
- a very useful catalog of addict's commonly encontered
limiting beliefs. This will be very useful for NLPers
who are novice to addiction recovery and want to start at once.
As the author had been an addiction recovery counselor for the US
Army for several years, the book is firmly built upon real live
experience. He has also co-authored with Franck Pucelik, Magic of NLP
Demystified, in the 80's.
This book desserves to find a place on your bookshelf! I recommend it twice:
first for the serious and documented information, second for the humoristic
illustrations.
Kelsey and Co Publishing is a new publisher and its upcomming program sounds
great:
-Sobriety Demystified Vol II:STAYING Clean and Sober with NLP and CBT.
-Recovering Ritual and Ceremony: Application of Transpersonal
Psychology to Addiction Treatment.
-Reality Wars:Dissociated State Therapy.
-Hypnotherapy Handbook.
-A Chink in the Armor: Assessment/Intervention Group Process.
For those living in Europe :
Could be found at AA Books aabooks@delphi.com.