The Family Recovery Guide: A Map for Healthy Growth. . - book review

Adolescence, Spring, 2002

BROWN. Stephanie. & LEWIS. Virginia M., with LIOTTA. Andrew. The Family Recovery Guide: A Map for Healthy Growth. Oakland. CA: New Harbinger Publications. 2000. 290pp. $15.95 (p).

Which is worse for a family: the awful certainties that accompany a parent's alcohol or drug abuse, or the massive uncertainties that come with that person's recovery? Abstinence is of course rife with turmoil for the addict, but now researchers are finding that family members who for years have adapted to the presence of addiction in their homes are often painfully confused, frightened and disoriented by the sudden loss of that addiction. Recovery stresses a family's dynamics and it must: established systems of relating to an addict are often all wrong for that addict's lasting recovery. In The Family Recovery Guide, the codirectors of The Family Recovery Institute help family members replace unhealthy means of relating to their addict with a detailed map of beneficial new family dynamics. This new map offers every member a means of support and a deep understanding of the need for transformative change that will help them see their addict's and their entire family's recovery all the way through.