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First-year Sobriety: When All That Changes is Everything (Paperback) - Common
The first in a series of three recovery guides for the first three years of sobriety, First-Year Sobriety uses the voices of many women and men who are struggling in the often baffling territory of their first year of sobriety to show that despite their differing experiences, all are united in the process of giving life without alcohol or other drugs a chance. These are people who are alternately amazed, appalled, delighted, depressed, illuminated, disturbed, or simply thrown by their first days, weeks, and months of sobriety. Kettelhack explores the challenges all seem to learning to break through loneliness, isolation, and fear; finding ways to deal with anger, depression, and resentment; and learning how to deal with a new and sometimes overwhelming happiness. Guy Kettelhack has written seven books on recovery. He is completing a Master's degree in psychoanalysis, and is an analyst-in-training at the Boston and New York Centers for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies. A graduate of Middlebury College, Kettelhack has also done graduate work in English literature at Bread Loaf School of English at Oxford University. He lives in New York City.
- GenresAddiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 2, 2011
Excellent collection of testimonials, anecdotes and observations (external and internal). Well told!
People, places and things almost always need to be looked at and changed in sobriety; few of us, in our “active” days, lived in a mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy environment.
We don’t generally realize until we stop drinking and drugging how destructive so many of the external circumstances of our lives were. And it can be hard to wean yourself off them, especially when they once gave you all the security you knew.
But we cheat ourselves when we give in. Even uncomfortable feelings can end up being instructive—the pain and dissatisfaction that life (work, love, friends, family, ourselves) can make us feel often lead to a new kind of clarity about who we are and what we want. Which can turn out to be something quite different that we once thought.
It seems crucial to be as patient and compassionate with yourself as you can be. Changing something as deeply bred as your dependency on drugs or alcohol (or any other escape-hatch behaviors you used to cling to that have proven to be self-destructive) isn’t easy. And as important as it is to be aware of people, places, things, avoiding any of them that threaten your sobriety as you take a new look at how you want to spend your time, sometimes you can’t change that overnight either.
As you give yourself permission to slow down, to do simple positive things in your life, you often find that you’re allowing a whole new self to emerge, one that’s a hell of a lot more interesting and unusual than the stuck-in-a-rut drunk or drug addict you were before sobriety.
We discover we’re capable of accepting more from life than we ever thought we could. Recovery shows us that we can face even our worst fears, our most hateful assumptions about ourselves, without becoming capsized or “punished”. We slowly discover a new capacity for conscious living: a humble, sometimes even awestruck state in which we begin to sift our fears and prejudices from a new sense of reality.
People, places and things almost always need to be looked at and changed in sobriety; few of us, in our “active” days, lived in a mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy environment.
We don’t generally realize until we stop drinking and drugging how destructive so many of the external circumstances of our lives were. And it can be hard to wean yourself off them, especially when they once gave you all the security you knew.
But we cheat ourselves when we give in. Even uncomfortable feelings can end up being instructive—the pain and dissatisfaction that life (work, love, friends, family, ourselves) can make us feel often lead to a new kind of clarity about who we are and what we want. Which can turn out to be something quite different that we once thought.
It seems crucial to be as patient and compassionate with yourself as you can be. Changing something as deeply bred as your dependency on drugs or alcohol (or any other escape-hatch behaviors you used to cling to that have proven to be self-destructive) isn’t easy. And as important as it is to be aware of people, places, things, avoiding any of them that threaten your sobriety as you take a new look at how you want to spend your time, sometimes you can’t change that overnight either.
As you give yourself permission to slow down, to do simple positive things in your life, you often find that you’re allowing a whole new self to emerge, one that’s a hell of a lot more interesting and unusual than the stuck-in-a-rut drunk or drug addict you were before sobriety.
We discover we’re capable of accepting more from life than we ever thought we could. Recovery shows us that we can face even our worst fears, our most hateful assumptions about ourselves, without becoming capsized or “punished”. We slowly discover a new capacity for conscious living: a humble, sometimes even awestruck state in which we begin to sift our fears and prejudices from a new sense of reality.
November 25, 2017
This helped me understand from a blind distance what my much-loved ex-husband might be going thru and why I felt so abandoned. He has one task and one task alone at this point - stop drinking and go to meetings. I have no role in that but I can support him in my heart.
April 21, 2008
Very raw look at several people's journey out of addiction and into sobriety.
August 24, 2009
A fantastic book for those embarking upon sobriety.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews