cover image The Intervention Book: Stories and Solutions from Addicts, Professionals, and Families

The Intervention Book: Stories and Solutions from Addicts, Professionals, and Families

Kathy L. . Conari, $16.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-57324-495-4

In her first book, Kathy L., 12-step recovery editor for BellaOnline.com, focuses on the nature of addiction, which she sees as a family disease marked by co-dependency, meaning that family members (not just the addict) should attend 12-step programs. The author examines a wide variety of substance abuse and compulsive behavior, including gambling and eating disorders. A section on the three types of intervention%E2%80%94such as seeing a trained professional, or what the author calls "divine" intervention%E2%80%94are informative if too brief. The bulk of the book consists of 19 short narratives about addicts in recovery. Most follow a common trajectory from childhood abuse, abandonment, or other injury through a period of repeated self-destructive behavior; realizations that intervention is needed; relapses and the ongoing but often successful struggle to maintain sobriety. Except for the author's occasional, irritating habit of injecting rhetorical questions ("Kind of looks like insanity, doesn't it?" she writes of one woman's behavior), these narratives are mostly engaging. But some readers will find too much emphasis on divine intervention ("God guided me," says one woman), and a lack of attempt to derive a larger conclusion from these stories. This book is useful but less informative than it might have been. (Sept.)