Stay on the Sobriety Highway by Mapping the Route

In his book Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception, Abraham J. Twerski discusses the origins of addictive thoughts and offers hope to those of us in recovery who are seeking a healthy and rewarding life. In this excerpt, Twerski examines how we all may perceive time differently. We can refigure our concept of time and begin to understand the future in a new way. Listen.

Begin with Yourself: Loving-Kindness for life in Recovery

In her book A Kinder Voice: Releasing Your Inner Critics with Mindfulness Slogans, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart shares tools for calming a self-critical mind. This excerpt introduces a Tibetan breathing meditation called tonglen. We can use this practice to develop more compassion and become willing to send as well as receive love and kindness in our lives. Listen.

How People Change: Six Stages of Transformation

In her book Addict in the Family: Support Through Loss, Hope, and Recovery, Beverly Conyers offers important lessons on love, detachment, and self-care for families who are dealing with addiction and codependency. This excerpt is for anyone who wants to understand how people change and what progress in recovery—or any significant life transformation—can look like. Listen.

Sex and Recovery: Telling the Truth Together

In her book Sex in Recovery: A Meeting Between the Covers, Jennifer Matesa argues that the language and practices of recovery are as appropriate to the bedroom as they are to the church basement meeting. Just like every other aspect of our recovering life, we're invited to approach sex and intimacy with courageous self-examination and humble honesty. Listen.

Let it Start with You: Break the Cycle of Family Addiction

In the book Unwelcome Inheritance: Break Your Family's Cycle of Addictive Behaviors, Lisa Sue Woititz discusses the generational trauma of addiction and explores how we can break the cycles that continue to harm our families. Woititz co-authors the book with her late mom, Dr. Janet Woititz, an early leader in the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA) movement. This excerpt helps us imagine and embrace our personal role as a change-making bridge between our family's past and its future. Listen.

Two Ways to Improve Your Self-Care Routine

In her book A Sober Mom's Guide to Recovery: Taking Care of Yourself to Take Care of Your Kids, Rosemary O'Connor addresses issues that mothers face at all stages of their recovery. Whether you're a mom or not, you can use the wisdom offered in this excerpt to develop self-care routines and rituals that will help you build well-being and find hope for the future. Listen.

How to Reconnect to Your Self in Recovery

In her book A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Stephanie Covington explores the Twelve Step program from a woman's perspective, but the invitation to self-connection in this excerpt applies to all of us, regardless of gender. Now that we are reclaiming ourselves from addiction, we need to ask, Who are we? What do we need and what do we want for our future? Listen.

Apparently Irrelevant Actions: Simple Steps to Reduce Cravings

In this excerpt from his book Craving: Why We Can't Seem to Get Enough, Dr. Omar Manejwala examines the "apparently irrelevant" choices we make that can either set us up for failure or help us succeed in avoiding a return to use. Using data and science, Dr. Manejwala shows how a combination of beliefs and behavior can reduce our cravings and help us maintain abstinence--the cornerstone of recovery. Listen.

Let's Get Real: Two Myths and One Truth about Recovery

A Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety, and Radical Transformation by Dr. Stephanie Brown is an insightful guide that can help readers unravel painful truths and confusing feelings in the process of creating a true sense of self in recovery. In this excerpt, Brown defines recovery, addresses the myths surrounding it, and discusses the truths of the recovery experience. Listen.

We're Not Normal: Allergy, Addiction, and the Myth of Willpower

A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living is an intensive study of the basic text of Twelve Step recovery—the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous. This excerpt offers insight on what it means to be allergic to alcohol or other addictive substances, and how "willpower" is an unhelpful myth when it comes to substance use disorder. Listen.

Time for a New Road: Mental Illness, Addiction, and That First Step

In her book Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps, Marya Hornbacher opens the discussion of recovery from co-occurring addiction and mental health disorders. In this excerpt, Hornbacher discusses her early experience with the Twelve Step program and her struggle with Step One as someone who also deals with a mental illness. Listen.

Stop That, Start This: Two Essentials for Early Recovery

In his book The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior, Craig Nakken discusses the genetic factors, cultural influences, and progressive nature of substance use disorders to help readers understand the process of addiction. In this excerpt, we explore two practices that are beneficial in the early stages of recovery: defining abstinence and developing positive rituals. Listen.

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In their book Living the Twelve Traditions in Today's World: Principles Before Personalities, Mel B. and Michael Fitzpatrick celebrate the history and development of Alcoholics Anonymous and interpret the program for the twenty-first century. This excerpt discusses the very first Tradition and how its focus on humility and unity continues to guide decisions and solve problems within AA groups today. Listen.

Retrain Your Brain: How to Let Go of Controlling Behavior

In her book Rein In Your Brain: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery, Cynthia Moreno Tuohy offers ten techniques that can help with the compulsive thoughts and behaviors that most of us still struggle with in recovery. In this excerpt, Tuohy discusses how control in relationships and addictions are similar, and how to develop different skills and behavior patterns to improve our relationships. Listen.

Easy to Read, Hard to Do: Steps One and Two for Skeptics

In his book Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA, A. J. Adams describes how joining Alcoholics Anonymous changed his preconceptions of the program. In this excerpt, Adams introduces the Twelve Steps to people in early recovery and discusses how he learned to navigate the first two Steps during his own journey. Listen.

You are Enough: How To Change a Negative Self-Image

In his book Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception, Dr. Abraham Twerski reveals how self-deceptive thoughts can threaten the sobriety of a recovering individual. We can use this excerpt to help us identify and sort through any distorted realities we have and correct negative self-images. Listen.

Stress Less: Two Techniques for Calming Anxiety

Relieve Stress: 5-Minute First Aid for the Mind, by Dr. Katrin Schubert, is a welcome guide to coping with stressful situations in recovery and daily life. Selected from the twenty exercises that comprise the book's how-to content, this excerpt offers a pair of step-by-step techniques for calming anxiety and managing stress. Listen.

Hope Grows in the Recovery Greenhouse

In their book Six Essentials to Achieve Lasting Recovery, Dr. Sterling Shumway and Dr. Thomas Kimball have identified six principles that reinforce the Twelve Steps and that are key to maintaining lasting recovery. This excerpt compares recovery to a greenhouse and describes what we need to keep our recovery, and healthy relationships, flourishing. Listen.

Four Tips for Reducing Stress by Dealing with Feelings

In his book Feed Your Head: Some Excellent Stuff on Being Yourself, Earl Hipp offers a framework for recognizing and dealing with feelings that can come with uncertainty, loss, and crisis. This excerpt introduces techniques for reducing stress and gives specific tips to guide us through problem management. We can use these tools to help navigate the difficulties in recovery and our daily life. Listen.

Help Wanted: Higher Power

In this excerpt from her book Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice, psychotherapist Ingrid Mathieu shows us that we don't have to be stuck on unhelpful definitions of God. We can let go of images and attributes that don't serve our sobriety. We get to be free to choose our own conception of a Higher Power we can trust—one that helps us heal. Listen.

End Emotional Isolation: How to Reach Out and Receive Help

In the book Sober but Stuck, author Dan F. has compiled testimonials from people in recovery to remind us that we're not alone. These voices offer insight into issues that often act as barriers to our continued sobriety. In this excerpt, Matthew describes how he overcame his struggle to reach out, gained the courage to tell his story honestly, and received genuine help to move forward in his recovery. Listen.

Eight Techniques for Uncovering Joy Every Day

In her book Fearless Relationships: Simple Rules for Lifelong Contentment, author Karen Casey offers wise counsel about what helps and what hinders relationships. Drawing from her own life experiences and lessons learned the hard way, Casey provides tips and steps on how to practice gratitude throughout recovery. Listen.

Four Ways to Find Safety, Serenity, and Freedom from Trauma

Passages through Recovery by Terence Gorski presents an action plan for preventing relapse. Gorski describes six stages of recovery from addiction and offers advice for working through the challenges of each stage. In this excerpt, Gorski explains the effects of repressed memories and how working with others in a safe environment can help us process our feelings and be more honest in our recovery. Listen.

Letting Go and Letting God: Sobriety and Self-Will

For decades, the book A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living has helped millions of people understand and apply the Twelve Steps to their lives and find an authentic path to recovery. In this excerpt, the authors guide us through the concept of giving up our self-will and letting our Higher Power take control. Listen.

Time Brings Change: How to Write Your Life's Next Chapter

The Grief Club, by Melody Beattie, offers powerful healing wisdom to help us through life's most difficult times. In this excerpt, Beattie shows us how we can acknowledge and work through the grief that comes with any kind of change. Those of us in early recovery are in transition all the time. Beattie's insights can help us manage these moments while also maintaining our sobriety. Listen.

Four "Cant's" and Four "Cans:" Dealing with Anger in Recovery

In their book Of Course You're Angry: A Guide to Dealing with the Emotions of Substance Abuse, authors Gayle Rosellini and Mark Worden help readers understand and manage the powerful emotions that often accompany early recovery. Anger won't go away on its own, and reasons to be angry won't disappear, but how we choose to process and act on our anger can and will change. That's the promise of recovery. Listen.

New Dreams Ahead

In The Next Happy: Let Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward, author Tracy Cleantis discusses how important it is to pause, reflect, and then move forward in our lives when things don't go as planned. This excerpt reminds us that giving up on a certain dream does not make us a failure or a quitter. Letting go can be a healthy decision that allows us to change our perspective and develop new goals—to reach the next happy. Listen.

Questions and Answers for Recovery Beginners

In his book Step Up: Unpacking Steps One, Two, and Three with Someone Who's Been There, Michael Graubart shares a practical approach to the first three Steps. This excerpt addresses some of the common yet important questions and concerns we may have as newcomers in recovery. Listen.

Drop the Rock: Decluttering and Detoxing

Drop the Rock: Removing Character Defects by Bill P., Todd W., and Sara S. is an important book to have when approaching Steps Six and Seven—in which we become ready and then ask our Higher Power to remove our defects of character and our shortcomings. In this excerpt, we're told how we can clean our house and detox in other areas of our lives in preparation to have our defects of character removed. Listen.

Maintenance and Management: Boundaries in Recovery

In her book Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin, author and therapist Anne Katherine explains what healthy boundaries can look like. In this excerpt, Katherine gets us thinking about how our boundaries came to be and discusses how good boundaries need ongoing attention and maintenance. Listen.

Addictive Rituals

Unhealthy and isolating rituals were part of our experience of addiction. Healthy rituals that connect us with others must be part of our recovery. The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior, by Craig Nakken, describes the two-sided personality we developed through our addiction and offers insights that can help us navigate the journey of wholeness and recovery. Listen.

Open Invitation: Work the Program that Works for You

In First-Year Sobriety: When All That Changes Is Everything, author Guy Kettlehack gives insightful advice about how to approach life when we're new to sobriety. In this excerpt, he reminds us that there isn't one specific way to go through the program, or to do recovery itself. We're not right or wrong—there's only one requirement for membership in a Twelve Step program: the desire to stop drinking or drugging. Listen.

Help for the Recovering Heart

In her book The Recovering Heart: Emotional Sobriety for Women, best-selling author Beverly Conyers shares insight on achieving emotional healing by addressing our behaviors and feelings. In this excerpt, Conyers describes the benefits of having a therapist, sponsor, or a group to talk to as we work the program and progress in our recovery. Listen.

Twelve Step Tutorial: What a Sponsor Does

In his book Twelve Step Sponsorship: How It Works, author and sponsor Hamilton B. lets us in on some of the need-to-know information about what can seem like a mysterious part of the program. In this excerpt he offers a few basics about how sponsorship works, what a sponsor is for, and how this unique relationship helps newcomers to recovery find help and hope. Listen.

Help from All Sides: Finding Meaning in the Journey

Those of us in recovery have a unique lens when it comes to pain and trauma. We have a sense that we can learn from our suffering, but how do we actually do that? In his classic book A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Patrick Carnes shows us how learning from our painful past can help us find meaning. Together with others, we can heal our hurting brains, find our spiritual power, and discover our life's purpose. Listen.

Loving-Kindness: Finding a Friend in Yourself

In her book A Kinder Voice: Releasing Your Inner Critics with Mindfulness Slogans, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart shares effective strategies to calm a self-critical mind. In this excerpt, we explore "loving-kindness practice"—training that can help rewire our brain to develop a kinder voice toward ourselves as we do the hard work of recovery. Listen.

Recovery and Your Physical Well-Being

In her book The Recovering Body: Physical and Spiritual Fitness for Living Clean and Sober, author Jennifer Matesa offers a guide to achieving physical recovery as part of our path to lifelong sobriety. In this excerpt, she shares her personal story of how physical activity helped her stop craving alcohol and find a sense of home for the first time. Listen.

Almost Mindful: Training Ourselves to Stay Present

In Almost Anxious: Is My (or My Loved One's) Worry or Distress a Problem? Dr. Luana Marques and Eric Metcalf offer a practical set of skills to help maintain our anxiety at a level that is "just right"—not too much and not too little. This excerpt provides techniques to "troubleshoot our mindfulness practice" to help us find more enjoyment in our daily lives. Listen.

The Three Stages of Recovery

In his book Destination Joy: Moving beyond Fear, Loss, and Trauma in Recovery, Earnie Larsen expertly and compassionately guides those who want a deeper understanding of recovery and their program. In this excerpt, Larsen introduces the three stages of recovery—addressing issues that could block our growth in recovery. Listen.

Embracing Doubt as a Spiritual Practice

In her book Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power, Marya Hornbacher shares her own journey to recovery and spiritual life as she explores spiritual concepts related to the practice of the Twelve Steps. In this excerpt, we explore how doubt can teach us spiritual strength. She explains how we can learn to wait through our doubt—keeping faith in ourselves and our recovery path. Listen.

Understanding Trauma and Anger: Setting Boundaries

Shock Waves: A Practical Guide to Living with a Loved One's PTSD by Cynthia Orange is a resource for learning to live with the scars of trauma and the "shock wave" effect of PTSD—along with effective responses to addiction and co-occurring disorders. In this excerpt, Orange discusses how anger can sprout from trauma. We discover how we can protect ourselves from toxic people and environments, which is essential for a healthy recovery. Listen.

Learn from Loss: Relapse as a Teachable Moment

In the book Now What? An Insider's Guide to Addiction and Recovery, William Cope Moyers shares his own story as a way to help others understand how addiction works and find hope in the practical promises of recovery, regardless of how hopeless the present moment seems. In this excerpt, Moyers offers a way to see even something as unwanted as relapse as a moment for learning and growth. Listen.

Relationship Revelation: Every Argument Is About Fear

A lifelong student of human relationships, best-selling author Karen Casey focuses her attention on what actions and behaviors help relationships flourish, and which hurt. In this excerpt from her book Fearless Relationships: Simple Rules for Lifelong Contentment, Casey reminds us that fear is at the center of every argument in any relationship—and teaches us how love can undo fear. Listen.

Inner Critic: Your Own Worst Enemy

In her book Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You, therapist and author Darlene Lancer offers an in-depth look at shame as a primary cause of codependency and addiction. This excerpt challenges us to examine our childhood—connecting the dots on how lingering past traumas can impact our adult lives. We learn about our inner critic and how we can develop empathy for the child we once were. Listen.

Purpose and Persistence: Moving Beyond the Limits of Addiction

In their book Six Essentials to Achieve Lasting Recovery, authors Sterling Shumway and Thomas Kimball identify six essential principles that reinforce the Twelve Steps and are key to lasting recovery. This excerpt focuses on how the early phases of recovery lay the groundwork for reclaiming our life's purpose, and for rebuilding our sense of achievement and accomplishment. Listen.

Practicing Presence: The Power in Meditation

In his book Practicing the Here and Now, Herb K. offers a framework for understanding and accessing the deep gifts prayer and meditation found in the Twelve Step journey of recovery. In this excerpt, Herb describes the practice of meditation, defining it as an intentional process that allows us to receive guidance that both informs and transforms our lives and relationships. Listen.

Logical Sense: Reaping the Benefits of Consequences

In his book What's Wrong with My Kid? When Drugs or Alcohol Might Be a Problem and What to Do about It, mental health and addiction recovery advocate George E. Leary offers a judgment-free guide to the warning signs of drug use or addiction in our kids. In this excerpt, Leary defines the difference between natural and logical consequences, and describes how their use can be teaching tools that prevent parent-child struggles while effectively addressing substance use. Listen.

The Joy of Step Twelve: Help Yourself by Helping Others

In her book Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps, author Marya Hornbacher examines the Twelve Steps and the tough yet rewarding journey toward recovery from addiction and successful management of a mental health disorder. In this excerpt, Hornbacher discusses the vital importance of Step Twelve: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." Listen.

The Case for Commitment

In his book A Gentle Path through the Twelve Principles: Living the Values Behind the Steps, Patrick Carnes presents twelve guiding principles essential in long-term recovery. This excerpt is about the vital importance of commitment in a recovering life, and the task of training our brains to help us do this hard work rather than taking shortcuts that can sabotage early recovery. Listen.

A Story for You: Bill W. and the Beginning of AA

In his book The 12 Steps Unplugged: A Young Person's Guide to Alcoholics Anonymous, adolescent addiction counselor John R. helps us discover the hidden treasures of the Big Book. In this excerpt, the author compares his experience with that of Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, to help us connect with the basic messages of getting honest with ourself, accepting the help of others, and finding a relevant spiritual support. Listen.

Tradition Eight: Giving It Away

In their book Living the Twelve Traditions in Today's World, recovery veterans Mel B. and Mike F. guide us through the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, and what they see as the key to the heart of the movement's lasting success: principles before personalities. This excerpt, focused on giving without payment and staying in one's own lane, provides a perspective on the core commitment to keeping peer-supported recovery free and nonprofessional. Listen.

Grace and Growth: There's no Finish Line to Recovery

In this excerpt from her book, Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice, Dr. Ingrid Mathieu explores the cyclical nature of learning and growth, underscoring the hopeful and freeing reality that there is no finish line when it comes to recovery. Listen.

Becoming Independent: Learning to Live Alone

Sandra Swenson, in her book Just Dandy: Living with Heartache and Wishes, shares her pain and struggles, strength and determination, as a series of crises—including her adult son's fight with addiction and her unexpected divorce—continue to unravel her world in unexpected ways. This excerpt is a refreshingly honest account of one woman's experience with heartache, acceptance, and rediscovery as she learns to navigate life on her own and finds new strengths and resiliency. Listen.

Recovery for Body, Mind, and Spirit

Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA by A. J. Adams is a perfect read for those of us who are in early recovery or who are having doubts about joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). In this excerpt, we hear how Adams's entire life changed—in body, mind, and spirit—after only one year in the program. Listen.

Terms of Acceptance

In the book A Balanced Life, Tom Smith offers guidance for the family and friends of a person with mental illness on how to support their loved one while maintaining emotional, mental, and spiritual balance in their own lives. In this excerpt, Smith discusses why we may have a hard time accepting the limited control we have over others' actions, and how acceptance can help us move toward greater personal peace and improved relationships. Listen.

You vs. the World: Learning to See Our Interconnectedness

In Finding Your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, therapist and addictions specialist Craig Nakken outlines forty-one spiritual principles that we can use to guide our behavior. In this excerpt, we learn how separateness can affect our daily lives in an unhealthy way, while connection with others provides opportunities for growth. Nakken also explains how finding the right community will help us progress on our road to recovery. Listen.

Finding Abundance in Financial Recovery

Those of us in recovery often have had fraught relationships with money. We know that our work includes settling both financial and emotional debts. In In this excerpt from her book Spent: Break the Buying Obsession and Discover Your True Worth, psychologist and author Sally Palaian outlines signs of financial health, describes how cleaning up our finances can lead to a sense of abundance, and explains how learning to be flexible and trusting is key to our inner peace in matters of money. Listen.

Get Your Loved One Back: Intervention as Hostage Negotiation

In their groundbreaking classic book Love First: A Family's Guide to Intervention, Jeff and Debra Jay provide clear steps for harnessing the power of family, friends, and professionals to create a better future with loved ones who have an addiction. In this excerpt, the authors apply insights from the science of hostage negotiation, teaching us how to consider the competing pulls of loss and gain that color every interaction with a person trapped in active addiction. Listen.

Strength in the Struggle: You Are Worth the Work

In her book Awakening Blackout Girl, survivor and victims' rights advocate Jennifer Storm shares information, tools, and resources for healing from sexual trauma while also in recovery from substance use. In this excerpt, she discusses the importance of self-awareness. We learn that mistakes are what lead to learning and growth, and that a setback does not mean you're on the verge of relapse. Listen.

It Takes a Family: Strength-Oriented Sobriety for Everybody

However you define "family," experts agree that we have the best chance of sustaining our recovery when the people we love most are involved in it—in a healthy way. In this excerpt from her book It Takes a Family: Creating Lasting Sobriety, Togetherness, and Happiness, Debra Jay offers guidance for those who love a person recovering from addiction. Listen.

An Invitation to Self-Care: The Many Faces of Self-Harm

In her book, An Invitation to Self-Care, bestselling author Tracey Cleantis identifies some of the unhealthy habits and behaviors in our daily lives and demonstrates how learning to nurture ourselves is a central part of living the lives we want. In this excerpt, Cleantis describes what self-care is by illustrating some of its opposites and shows how these actions can hinder our journey to recovery and our better selves. Listen.

Keep Bringing Your Body: Making the Most of Meetings

As Meredith Gould reminds us in her book, Staying Sober: Tips for Working a Twelve Step Program of Recovery, regular attendance at meetings is a key feature of Twelve Step recovery, and the place where much of the isolation-busting magic of real recovery starts. In this excerpt, Dr. Gould offers an overview of what a newcomer to meetings might encounter as well as some tips for making the most of Twelve Step meetings. Listen.

The Wealth of Healthy Relationships

In the book, Rein In Your Brain, Cynthia Moreno Tuohy gives insightful guidance for how we can be more thoughtful in our daily lives. In this excerpt, she visits the topic of relationships and gives us examples of how to effectively determine the health of our personal relationships. Listen.

Family Traits: Discovering the Origin of Our Addictions

In Unwelcome Inheritance, Lisa Woititz, with material from her mother, Dr. Janet Woititz, discusses and analyzes Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoA). In this excerpt we are reminded that, although addiction can be inherited, we can break the cycle. We learn the importance of knowing our relatives' health histories and how making these connections can be beneficial in our own recovery. Listen.

Passages Through Recovery: Controlling Behavioral Impulses

Passages Through Recovery by Terence Gorski provides readers with an action plan to stay on the course of recovery. In this excerpt, Gorski discusses the power of using good judgment and how we can learn to control our behavioral impulses. Listen.

Improve Sleep: Dreams Interrupted

Improve Sleep by Katrin Schubert offers significant strategies for a good night's sleep. This excerpt shares techniques that can improve your sleep habits. Having a stable night routine is essential in our paths to recovery. Following these tips can reduce sleepless nights and prepare you to take on the next day. Listen.

I'm Not God: Working Out What's Worth Worshipping

In his book The Spiritual Self: Reflections on Recovery and God, rabbi and psychiatrist Abraham Twerski speaks with a unique perspective on the ways spirituality can affect emotional health and successful sobriety. In this excerpt, Dr. Twerski offers insights about the role of ego in Twelve Step recovery, and how a healthy spirituality can help us right-size the way we think of ourselves. Listen.

Don't Let Fear Overrule: The Lack of Intimacy

In Sober but Stuck, Dan F. presents the stories of people who are dealing with difficult barriers in their paths to recovery. In this excerpt, we are introduced to a man who has discovered how the lack of intimacy has hindered his personal relationships and how dealing with our character defects can aid in our recovery progress. Listen.

No Spiritual Shortcuts: The Only Way Forward is Through

In this excerpt from her book, Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice, Dr. Ingrid Mathieu explores "Spiritual Bypass," defined as the habit of using spiritual language and insights to avoid dealing with the difficult feelings and experiences that are part of every life. Listen.

Back to Basics: What Does Unmanageable Mean?

In this excerpt from his book, Step Up: Unpacking Steps One, Two, and Three with Someone Who's Been There, bestselling author and sober alcoholic Michael Graubart explores the word unmanageability as it appears in Step One, and how our impulse to control everyone and everything is at the heart of our struggle with alcoholism and other addictions. Listen.

Skills for the Hard Times: Self-Care in a Season of Grief

We live in a culture that is in denial about the complicated emotions surrounding loss and grief. In his book, Help for the Hard Times: Getting Through Loss, Earl Hipp argues that people who understand loss and grief are better able to face life boldly. In this excerpt, Hipp offers advice for the grieving as a list of self-care "skills" by which we can survive and even grow through the hard times of our lives. Listen.

The Myth of Immunity: Risks that Accompany Success

In Craving, author and physician Omar Manejwala, translates the neurobiology of this human phenomenon into real and accessible terms, explaining why we just can't seem to get enough. In this excerpt, Dr. Manejwala points out that it's often when things are going well—when we think we've got it all figured out—that we are most vulnerable to our cravings, and most at risk for relapse. Listen.

Pocket Your Pride: Humility and Hope in Step Five

In Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps, bestselling author Marya Hornbacher shares her own recovery story to guide readers through the maze of issues that make "working the Steps" uniquely challenging for people with co-occurring disorders. In this excerpt, Hornbacher explores the critical distinction between humility and humiliation as people with mental health disorders undertake Step Five. Listen.

Shared Hearts: Healthy Love in an Unhealthy Time

Now in its third edition, Brenda Shaeffer's Is It Love or Is It Addiction? has helped countless people find their way from the trials and confusion of addictive love to the fulfillment of whole and healthy relationships. This excerpt celebrates the enduring power of love, and describes some ways that power can get twisted by trauma or misused through misunderstanding and inattention. Listen.

The Power of Action for Healing and Hope

In her book, The Recovering Heart: Emotional Sobriety for Women, Beverly Conyers gives readers of all genders wisdom for the journey of recovery. In this excerpt, she underscores the links between reflection and action in the process of healing. Action is the antidote to habitual helplessness and poor self-image. The path to reclaiming the power we lost to trauma and addiction is through those positive things big and small that we do to build self-worth. Listen.

Tune In Today: Turning Down Denial and Turning Up Compassion

In her book, When Reality Bites: How Denial Helps and What to do When it Hurts, lecturer and author Holly Parker demonstrates how denial helps people cope in times of crisis or tragedy. She also teaches us how to recognize when it becomes counterproductive or detrimental—for ourselves as well as our neighbors and the planet. In this excerpt, Dr. Parker describes the ways we often "tune out" uncomfortable realities and offers a method for turning up the volume on compassion. Listen.

The Road to Compassion Goes Through Empathy

In this excerpt from her book Take Good Care: Finding Your Joy in Compassionate Caregiving, author Cynthia Orange invites us to regularly exercise our "empathy muscles." As we do, each of our interactions and relationships will benefit from more compassion, patience, understanding, and kindness. Listen.

Look to the Stars: Practicing Humility

In Finding Your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, Craig Nakken offers tools for discovering options and making choices—especially when the choices aren't clear. In this excerpt, we explore the tension between resistance and acceptance, and how both reveal who we are and what we can be. Listen.

New Year, Deep Breath: Challenge Your Anxiety-Fueled Thoughts

In Almost Anxious: Is My (or My Loved One's) Worry or Distress a Problem?, Dr. Luana Marques offers practical steps to reduce anxiety. Learning to monitor and challenge our negative thoughts can help us find more enjoyment in our days, experience better family and work environments, and eliminate the emotional, mental, and even physical problems that anxiety often causes. Listen.

New Year, New Hope: Spiritual Skeptics Welcome

In Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA, recovering alcoholic A.J. Adams shares insights and wisdom from his own story of skeptic spirituality, and the gifts of acceptance and willingness that he found along the path of recovery. Listen.

New Year, Next Happy: Grieving Losses Large and Small

In her book, The Next Happy: Let Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward, Tracey Cleantis offers practical help for the journey of grief. With wisdom from her own hard experience, Cleantis shows how to face the reality of letting go of dreams that can no longer be, accept sadness, anger, and shame, and ask the questions that will let you find a new way forward. Listen.

New Year, New Perspective: Work, Success, and Self-Worth

Whether we're in the early stages of recovery or have a few years in the rearview, having a job or not having one can offer some formidable emotional challenges. In his book, First Year Sobriety: When All That Changes is Everything, Guy Kettelhack helps us explore ways to deal with our hopes and fears about loneliness, success, and purpose without resorting to old, self-destructive behaviors. Listen.

New Year, New Chances: Rebuilding Trust in Early Recovery

Beverly Conyers has helped hundreds of thousands of readers recognize family roles in addiction, heal shame, and build healthy relationships. In Everything Changes: Help for Families of Newly Recovering Addicts, Conyers underscores the role of trust in family relationships and offers advice for supporting the loved one in your family with the disease of addiction, as well as ways to care for and support yourself as you navigate the early months of recovery. Listen.

New Year, New Now: Stop Letting the Past Control Today

Beloved author Earnie Larsen was a true and certain guide to living more abundantly in recovery. In his book, Destination Joy: Moving Beyond Fear, Loss, and Trauma in Recovery, Larsen explores ways you can bring greater love, acceptance, and belonging into your life. This includes learning to fully inhabit the present moment—what he calls "getting in the now." Listen.

New Year, New Vision: Seeing Without Judging

While many see the new year as a chance to try new things and make big changes, author and recovery guide Beverly Conyers shows how each day—even each moment—contains the same promise and possibility. In her book, Find Your Light: Practicing Mindfulness to Recover from Anything, Conyers shows us how the practice of mindfulness—including the skill of seeing without judging—can be a game-changing part of recovery and a path to a happier life. Listen.

Find Your People: Belonging to Others in Recovery

Those of us in recovery came to know the life-or-death value of having at least one person who knows us through and through—and cares about us anyway. In this excerpt from his book, A Gentle Path Through the Twelve Principles: Living the Values Behind the Steps, Patrick Carnes focuses our attention on the vulnerability and trust inherent to the Fifth Step. Listen.

The Difference Between Guilt and Shame

Dr. Joseph Lee, in this excerpt from his book Recovering My Kid, helps illuminate the difference between guilt and shame, and shows us how these emotional and relational forces are at play in treating addiction, embracing recovery, and rebuilding trust and hope in a family. Listen.

Sober Mom's Tools for Surviving the Holidays

Many of us are running ourselves ragged these days—especially parents or caregivers. In this excerpt from her book, A Sober Mom's Guide to Recovery: Taking Care of Yourself to Take Care of Your Kids, Rosemary O'Connor charts a path through the Holidays that can help you stay sane and sober, and even enjoy some peace with yourself and your family. Listen.

You are Worth the Effort: Training Makes the Difference

In her book A Kinder Voice: Releasing Your Inner Critics with Mindfulness Slogans, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart offers a simple solution to the many ways we talk ourselves into false beliefs about our aptitudes and gifts: practice. Happiness, she teaches, is worth the effort. Listen.

Nourishing the Body: The Sugar Thing

Whether it was stress eating over the last year of uncertainty and unrest, or the fact that the holidays are upon us again, many of us are thinking about what we put in our bodies, and how what we eat can affect our health—including our recovery. In this excerpt from her book The Recovering Body: Physical and Spiritual Fitness for Living Clean and Sober, author Jennifer Matesa takes a look at the addictive qualities of sugar, and what it does to our minds and bodies. Listen.

Trust the Process: Ripple Effect in Everything

In his book, Drop the Rock: The Ripple Effect, Fred H. helps us explore Step Ten, and how the habits and practices that we build in a program of recovery create positive effects in us that ripple outward into our relationships and beyond. As we work Step Ten, we come to see that all we can control is the integrity of our response to what happens. Listen.

Love in Recovery: Start with Yourself

Jennifer Storm, in her book Awakening Blackout Girl: A Survivor's Guide for Healing from Addiction and Sexual Trauma, brings us along on her journey through trauma and recovery, sharing her missteps as well as personal triumphs. Finding love and pursuing relationships in early recovery can be fraught in the best circumstances; Storm says our search for deep and dependable love must start with ourselves. Listen.

New Year, New Start: Becoming, in Every Moment of Life

In her new book Just Dandy: Living with Heartache and Wishes, Sandra Swenson writes about leaning into the future with hope and confidence—not that everything will turn out fine, but that, whatever happens, she will act in ways that are true to herself. The new year is an opportunity to keep becoming, keep learning the lessons that come with grief as well as gratitude, and keep living with integrity, grace, and openheartedness. Listen.

Learning to Recognize Grief: Skills for the Holidays...and Recovery

No one has been spared from loss or grieving this year, especially those of us in recovery who may also be experiencing the loss of our former coping mechanism, substance use. In his book Help for the Hard Times: Getting Through Loss, Earl Hipp tells us all about grief and what we can do to work through it while sustaining our sobriety. Listen.

Transformation: The Journey of Recovery

In her book, Sane, Marya Hornbacher explores how Step Seven, particularly after working all the steps before it, offers us the opportunity to see our own transformation: what we were before, while looking ahead to what we can become next. We can become something completely new¿or something we already were, but couldn't see, because of our addiction. Listen.

A Helpful Reminder: We Can All Help Others

As we get closer to the holiday season, it's time to reflect on how those of us in recovery can be of service to others. In Three Simple Rules: Uncomplicating Life in Recovery, author Michael Graubart tells us about helping others, but making sure we're offering "helpful help," rather than "unhelpful help." Listen.

Shame in Recovery: An Unwelcome Visitor at the Holidays

Jennifer Storm, in her book Awakening Blackout Girl: A Survivor's Guide for Healing from Addiction and Sexual Trauma, brings us along on her journey through trauma and recovery, showing us how shame has shaped her experiences through it all¿and still today. She reminds us that though we will make mistakes and need to make amends again and again in life, we don't have to let shame control us. Listen.

Coping Ahead: Preparing for Confrontation

As we think of the holidays, there's quite a bit we might need to cope with: health, boundaries, family issues, beverage and menu choices, and so much more. Here's a mini-course for coping with confidence from the book, Of Course You're Angry: A Guide to Dealing with the Emotions of Substance Abuse, by Gayle Rosellini and Mark Worden. Listen.

Help for the Hard Times: Supporting Others

The holidays are coming up and many of us will be feeling loss and grief this year, different from that felt in any other year. In his book Help for the Hard Times: Getting Through Loss, Earl Hipp helps us see that we can help others through their grief, especially if we've already spent considerable time in The Hard Times. Listen.

Just Dandy: Being With Family While Being Without Family

Sandra Swenson, in her new book Just Dandy: Living with Heartache and Wishes, writes about the holidays and family from the perspective of a mother whose son struggles with addiction¿and also as a person who also manages the other aspects of her life that can be just as hope-filled and heartbreaking. How do we do it? How can we be "just dandy" and mean it? Listen.