Recover All: A Guide for Families in Understanding Addiction

Recover All is a needed and telling guide enabling family members, companions, and friends of a chemically dependent person to comprehend the process of addiction. Written from a unique, dynamic perspective, the book equips loved ones of a chemically dependent person with practical tools to find help for the one close to them. Having been diagnosed a chemically dependent polysubstance abuser at age twelve, author Rob Reid entered treatment more than nine times. After his ultimate recovery from the addictive hopelessness he once knew, Reid worked in a long-term residential drug and alcohol recovery program for men. While working hands-on with addicts and their families, Reid noticed a dire need to bridge the chasm of understanding between chemically dependent persons and their loved ones. The work opens by addressing what addiction is, how it develops, and the dynamics of the addictive personality. Most, however, this book shares real-life experiences from both the personal and treatment-administration perspectives. Such rare, two-perspective insight communicates the experience, strength, and hope that any person with a chemically dependent loved one longs for. Recover All not only shares information about addiction, but it also addresses fundamental issues and questions facing loved ones of those struggling with addiction. These issues include identifying the signs of addiction, dealing with denial both in the addict and among the addict's family and friends, overcoming rationalization, identifying and preventing manipulation, dealing with selfishness, and saying no effectively. Recover All provides a sensible, realistic overview of chemical dependency treatment options as well as a simple method for determining the usefulness of each treatment option in specific circumstances. Reid concludes by outlining the phenomenon of relapse and by providing the ten most detrimental behaviors a family member or friend could exhibit in a loved one's recovery process.