In this new book, Bo shares the steps he took to deal with his addictions and his path to healing that enabled him to fulfill his mandate to preach the Gospel to thousands. It reveals the seven powerful secrets that can set addicts free – and give the power to reclaim their life and fulfill their dreams.

The most innovative leaders in progressive addiction treatment in the US offer a groundbreaking, science-based guide to helping loved ones overcome addiction problems and compulsive behaviors. The most innovative leaders in progressive addiction treatment in the US offer a groundbreaking, science-based guide to helping loved ones overcome addiction problems and compulsive behaviors. Beyond Addiction eschews the theatrics of interventions and tough love to show family and friends how they can use kindness, positive reinforcement, and motivational and behavioral strategies to help their loved ones change. Drawing on forty collective years of research and decades of clinical experience, the authors present the best practical advice science has to offer. Delivered with warmth, optimism, and humor, Beyond Addiction defines a new, empowered role for friends and family and a paradigm shift for the field. Learn how to tap the transformative power of relationships for positive change, guided by exercises and examples. Practice what really works in therapy and in everyday life, and discover many different treatment options along with tips for navigating the system. And have hope: this guide is designed not only to help someone change, but to help someone want to change.

A “thought-provoking and powerful” study that reframes everything you’ve been taught about addiction and recovery—from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Myth of Normal (Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog). A world-renowned trauma expert combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction—its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery. Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with people with addiction on Vancouver’s skid row, this #1 international bestseller radically re-envisions a much misunderstood condition by taking a compassionate approach to substance abuse and addiction recovery. In the same vein as Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts traces the root causes of addiction to childhood trauma and examines the pervasiveness of addiction in society. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout—and perhaps underpins—our society. It is not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs and behaviors of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. Dr. Maté argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and how they perpetuate the War on Drugs. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own “high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

Winner of a 2018 Catholic Press Association Award: Sacraments. (Second Place). In the first book to directly integrate the Twelve Steps with the practice of Catholicism, Scott Weeman, founder and director of Catholic in Recovery, pairs his personal story with compassionate straight talk to show Catholics how to bridge the commonly felt gap between the Higher Power of twelve-step programs and the merciful God that he rediscovered in the heart of the sacraments. Weeman entered sobriety from alcohol and drugs on October 10, 2011, and he's made it his full-time ministry to help others who struggle with various types of addiction to find spiritual wholeness through Catholic in Recovery, an organization he founded and directs. In The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments, Weeman candidly tackles the struggle he and other addicts have with getting to know intimately the unnamed Higher Power of recovery. He shares stories of his compulsion to find a personal relationship with God and how his tentative steps back to the Catholic Church opened new doors of healing and brought him surprising joy as he came to know Christ in the sacraments. Catholics in recovery and those moving toward it, as well as the people who love them will recognize Weeman's story and his spiritual struggle to personally encounter God. He tells us how: Baptism helps you admit powerlessness over an unmanageable problem, face your desperate need for God, and choose to believe in and submit to God’s mercy. Reconciliation affirms and strengthens the hard work of examining your life, admitting wrongs, and making amends. The Eucharist provides ongoing sustenance and draws you to the healing power of Christ. The graces of Confirmation strengthen each person to keep moving forward and to share the good news of recovery and new life in Christ. Weeman's words are boldly challenging and brimming with compassion and through them you will discover inspiration, hope, sage advice, and refreshingly practical help.

One question that anyone who has witnessed addiction up close inevitably asks is, "Why can't they just stop?" For decades the question has confounded addicts, their families, and the doctors and specialists trying to help them. Now it can finally be answered. Thanks to major leaps in the scientific understanding of addiction, an entirely new portrait of this frightening disease has come into focus. The new science tells us that addicts, in part, are unable to quit using drugs or alcohol because chemical changes in their brains prevent them from doing so. In this penetrating look at how addiction works, editors John Hoffman and Susan Froemke (producers of the HBO documentary series ADDICTION) have turned more than two years of research and reporting into a vitally important guide for any family faced with the disease. New imaging technology has enabled scientists to peer inside the addicted brain and observe in real time what craving for drugs and alcohol looks like chemically. It is now possible to literally see the ways that substances like cocaine, heroin, and alcohol alter the brain's "Stop!" and "Go!" decision-making processes. Better scientific understanding has yielded innovations in behavioral therapies, while new medications that can be prescribed by family doctors have been clinically proven to reduce craving in alcoholics and opiate addicts. The result? As Addiction: Why Can't They Just Stop? reports in riveting detail, there is new hope for anyone struggling with addiction. The stories about scientists, doctors, researchers, and families that face addiction gathered in this book testify to the fact that the tide has turned. Yes, recovery remains an imperfect process. It must be tailored to the needs of the individual; it may take years to achieve remission. But, armed with the new science-based understanding of the disease, experts have created treatments that are ever more precise and effective—making recovery a realistic goal for all addicts. The evidence is in. The battle against the addiction epidemic can—and should—be won.

Media portrayals and diagnostic criteria convey an image of an addicted person as someone whose deficient coping skills and severely compromised functioning are readily apparent. Yet addictions remain some of the most frequently missed diagnoses in health and mental health care settings. This occurs, in large part, because most people with addictions do not fit the stereotype. In the context of psychotherapy, the typical patient with an addiction will present depression, anxiety, marital problems or a general sense that life is not working. This book addresses how addictions can be recognized more often and accurately assessed in the context of psychotherapy. Along with learning about the standard assessment instruments, the reader is introduced to methods for asking the appropriate questions and listening to the clinical dialogue for signs of a undisclosed addiction. This book provides a great deal of knowledge about addictions and their assessment in a way that is relevant to clinical practice.

A guide to all kinds of addiction from a star who has struggled with heroin, alcohol, sex, fame, food and eBay, that will help addicts and their loved ones make the first steps into recovery “This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud...My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse.” —Russell Brand With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his fourteen years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction—from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not “Why are you addicted?” but "What pain is your addiction masking? Why are you running—into the wrong job, the wrong life, the wrong person’s arms?" Russell has been in all the twelve-step fellowships going, he’s started his own men’s group, he’s a therapy regular and a practiced yogi—and while he’s worked on this material as part of his comedy and previous bestsellers, he’s never before shared the tools that really took him out of it, that keep him clean and clear. Here he provides not only a recovery plan, but an attempt to make sense of the ailing world.