Assess, Rebuild, Connect

July 1, 2018

According to various counseling professionals of the Adams Recovery Center (ARC), Loveland, OH, leading a fulfilling, sober life is similar to owning a car in that the body requires constant care and regular maintenance. Their slim but comprehensive volume provides exercises, reflections, and practical examples to help readers assess obstacles to recovery, rebuild the most meaningful parts of their lives, and connect with the world through repairing relationships and managing challenges that come with sustaining lifelong sobriety. Included are tools to help those in recovery reestablish trust, live with integrity, better understand difficult family dynamics, and move forward realizing their passions.

In The Gift of Recovery, clinical psychologist Williams and marriage/family therapist Kraft navigate similar terrain but with a focus on the practice of mindfulness. They offer 52 meditations, or "gifts," for reducing stress, and managing depression and strong emotions, along with skills based in cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and acceptance/commitment therapy. Readers are provided with strategies that teach them how to change their perspective about anxiety, release old ways of coping, and find joy in the process. Covering parallel aspects of recovery--relinquishing control, altering one's thoughts and behaviors--but using slightly different techniques, both books address and enrich the process of transformation. VERDICT Recommended for anyone in recovery, with Gift being more suitable for those open to meditation and affirmations.

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