I just found a unique author with a good recovery book that seems to mirror a lot of my ideas about recovery.  Vivian talks about recovery from a real-world, practical standpoint and also incorporates overcoming depression and anxiety into her recovery efforts, something that I think a lot of addicts and alcoholics struggle with.

Vivian also focuses on practicing gratitude as part of a positive attitude in recovery.  This is very much in line with my personal philosophy of recovery as well.  I think eventually the question becomes for anyone in recovery: “OK, now how am I going to live a sober life?”

Eventually we move beyond that first stage of recovery where we are shocked just to be off the drugs and the booze.  We have to branch out and start growing in new directions and find a new life in recovery.  I think this is where my philosophy probably overlaps with Vivian’s.  We both push for a holistic and spiritual approach to long term recovery.

Vivian also has a free report that you can download instantly that has some good information about recovery and how to help struggling alcoholics as well.  You can check that out along with her recovery book right here.

How does “The Path of Least Resistance,” by Robert Fritz, apply to recovery?

In a number of different ways. This book is pure magic for the recovering addict or alcoholic.

1) “You go through life taking the path of least resistance”

We can easily apply this principle to our drinking days or when we
were actively using drugs. Medicating ourselves with chemicals was
the quick fix; the instant gratification. For the addict mind, using
chemicals almost always represented the path of least resistance.
Fritz argues that if you try to make major life changes, chances are
good that you will eventually return to your original behavior — if
that behavior still represents the path of least resistance.

2) “The underlying structure of your life determines the path of least resistance”

This is huge. What this means is that if you quit using drugs and
alcohol, but the underlying structure of your life doesn’t change,
then you will return to your old ways.

3) “You can change the underlying structure of your life”

Recovery in action. When people refer to “doing the footwork” in
recovery, they are not talking about making superficial changes.
People who experience a genuine lasting recovery from addiction do so
through a complete change in personality; a true spiritual experience
that changes them from the inside out. Major changes, not superficial
ones. Fritz is arguing that you can indeed change the underlying
structure of your life. Recovering addicts and alcoholics who have
achieved long term sobriety have done exactly that.

When I finally got clean and sober, I did so by making truly major
changes to the underlying structure of my life. Here are some
examples of those structural changes:

1) Entered a long term treatment center and lived there for 20 months.

2) Started attending 12 step meetings every single day, sometimes 2 or
3 meetings per day.

3) Left all of my old drinking buddies, changed all of these unhealthy
associations permanently and completely

Those are major structural changes, especially living in long term
treatment–along with everything that doing so entails.

4) “You can learn to recognize these key structures”

We must increase our awareness and practice mindfulness. We can also
use our sponsor or our peers in recovery to help us see these
underlying structures.

5) “Attempting to use a psychological solution for a structural problem is not going to work”

This has huge implications for recovery. A psychologist might try to
solve your alcoholism through psychotherapy, and figuring out what
made you an alcoholic in the first place. Or, a therapist might try
some emotional therapy techniques with you, in an attempt to get you
to retrain how you react to situations. These are psychological
solutions.

But there is a mountain of evidence that points to addiction as being
a structural problem. This becomes especially true the longer someone
has been using drugs or alcohol. This is because their whole life
starts to revolve around the addiction. For example, an alcoholic
will tend to associate with other heavy drinkers, find friends and/or
a spouse who is codependent (and thus supports their drinking), and
generally set up their life so that it enables them to drink all the
time. Because addiction is a set of patterns, it really is a structural problem.
When the finally decide to quit drinking, all of these underlying structures that made
it easy to drink are still in place.

Structure and the Creative Process

Fritz says that it is easy to create with structure but difficult to
destroy or “take away.” So instead of asking “how can create a
structure in my life to get rid of my drinking problem,” the question
should really be phrased more along the lines of “how can I create an
underlying structure in my life that leads to spiritual growth?” The book
also talks about the difference between oscillating (moving towards a
goal and then sliding back) versus creating towards a resolution. The
idea is to find structures that lead to a resolution, instead of
finding ourselves trapped in oscillating structures that have us
making short progress followed by a few steps backwards (relapse).

The implications for recovery here are huge, and this is just chapter
1 out of 19 chapters!

You can also purchase this book right here if you’d like.

Title: A Million Little Pieces

Author: James Frey

Overall Rating: A very, very good book. Potentially life changing in the right hands.

What are some things you really liked about the book?

Frey has a unique, gripping style of writing. The story is well paced and emotionally charged. You will not become bored with the story.

Anything that wasn’t so great about it?

Just all the hype, controversy, and media coverage involved with the book and the author.

What this Book is all about:

This book is about a struggling drug addict/alcoholic and his journey in early recovery. At times it is violent and explicit, but even the squeamish folks will overlook this because the story is so engaging. It is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of a treatment center, but that is beside the point. This is a stirring, emotionally gripping roller coaster of a story that will seriously engage you and leave you wanting more. Frey exaggerates, embellishes, and flat out lies in parts of this book. It doesn’t matter. Even if the book is nothing but lies and falsehood, the story is so emotionally engaging and the writing is so well done that you can’t help but be completely taken away by the story.

Who should read this book:

People in recovery, or anyone with an interest in addiction and/or alcoholism. Or, simply anyone who wants to read a gripping story.

Who might want to skip it:

Anyone who can’t get over the fact that much of the story is actually a falsified memoir is going to skip this book. But I am urging you to throw that all aside and just read the thing. The story is so moving and the writing is so raw and perfectly executed that it just doesn’t matter. Read the story and digest it and take it for what it is worth. To me, the story was worth a great deal. I happen to be in recovery, but this book truly made me think; made me reflect on things. And it gave me gratitude. Don’t let the negative hype take that experience away from you. It is worth a read.

Final word:

Forget all the hype and buy it now. You will not regret it.

Title: The 4 Hour Work Week

Author: Tim Ferris

Overall Rating: Outstanding. This book is potentially life changing.

What are some things you really liked about the book?

Tim Ferris uses a lot of concrete examples. He tells stories and uses real life situations in order to illustrate concepts. It’s not just a get-rich-quick book. Nor is it a time management book. Tim guides the reader through the process of identifying their dreams and then (he attempts) to show you how to achieve them. Does a pretty good job of the whole thing too.

Anything that wasn’t so great about it?

Not particularly. You will devour this book very quickly, and probably end up reading it more than once.

What this Book is all about:

Selling the Dream

The 4 Hour Work Week really excels at “selling the dream.” What do I mean by that? Well, the whole idea of the book is to get the reader to imagine a life where their income is automated and they are no longer selling their time for money (as in, working a regular job). The title alone should clue you into this concept, as it starts selling the dream before you’ve even read a single page. Tim Ferris takes the dream selling even further in the actual book, as he gets the reader to engage in exercises where they map out their “dreamlines,” or things that they would like to do or accomplish if they had more time and money. His approach is pointed and specific….you are not just casually fantasizing about what you want out of life. Instead, the reader is guided through a series of questions to define exactly what their dreams are and what they most want out of life.

Relative Income

One of the key concepts in The Four Hour Work Week is that you are only “rich” if you have leisure time to enjoy yourself. Corporate America is busy working 50, 60, 70 hour weeks and beyond just to “keep up with the Joneses.” Obviously, based on the title of the book alone, you can guess that Tim places a big emphasis on relative income over absolute income. At one point he asks the creative question: “Would you rather have a 20 percent raise, or keep your pay exactly the same but get Fridays off?” People who value relative income would take the Fridays off. People who value absolute income would take the money. Tim is hoping to guide the reader into a mindset where they see the time off as being much more valuable. These are the kind of brain-tickling questions that propel the reader through the book.

Generating Passive Income Sources

The idea of passive income is critical in achieving your “dreamlines” and in liberating yourself from a nine to five job. Tim actually does a pretty good job on this section, and explains in detail how to go about “microtesting” a product idea before developing it and then selling it. He differentiates from setting up an actual “business” that you would have to then spend all of your time running. Instead, he focuses on setting up passive income streams that are virtually maintenance-free.

The Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule)

The Pareto principle is an idea (or phenomenon) that 80 percent of the outputs usually come from only 20 percent of the inputs. This has been observed in all sorts of different things. For example, 20 percent of all drivers cause 80 percent of all traffic accidents. Tim’s advice is to apply this law to our job or our business in order to increase productivity and focus on what truly matters. He also suggests combining this idea with Parkinson’s Law, which states that an imminent deadline has a huge potential for getting work done. The sum total of these two principles is that you become much more effective and get the truly important things done quickly, while eliminating all of the “busy work” from your life.

Automation / Telecommuting

There are basically two routes you can go according to Tim. If you are currently working at a job in the corporate world, your goal is to move towards telecommuting as much as possible. Tim walks you through exactly how to do this, and how to convince your boss that you are more valuable out in the field than you are in the office. The idea is liberation through mobility. Tim really gets detailed in outlining exactly how to achieve this, right down to overcoming a number of different objections that management might have.

The other route to “liberation” is through entrepreneurship. The idea is to create a hands-off business (a “muse”) that will generate passive income for you, so that you can become mobile and have more time. Again, Tim takes you through this process in great detail, and also gives a ton of resources for the specific ideas that he his proposing. If you want everything spelled out for you as to how to go about generating passive income, this is a fairly good guide for it.

Outsourcing

Tim advocates the idea of “outsourcing your life.” If you start a business, but then work like a dog in order to be successful with it, then you are no better off than those who work for a “boss.” Tim would advocate hiring others to run your business for you. But he also takes it much further than that. The idea is to outsource just about any aspect of your life or job that doesn’t require your unique attention. The idea is to free up your time from the mundane tasks and use that time to focus on the things that matter (like starting new streams of income). It’s just another way to work the 80/20 principle into your working life.

Mini-retirements: Enjoy Your Life Now!

Tim also introduces the idea of mini-retirements. This is a direct challenge against the old way of thinking that says we should work full time until we’re 65 and then retire. Instead, Tim shows you how to enjoy your life now with several mini-retirements each year. He has a strong emphasis on mobility and travel, and sort of assumes that if everyone had more time and money on their hands, they would naturally want to travel more. While this may or may not be true for everybody, the idea of the mini-retirement still has value, and it fits in well with the other concepts in the book.

Who should read this book:

Anyone with even the slightest hint of an entrepreneurial spirit in them should read this book. Also, anyone looking to “work from home” or “escape 9 to 5.” If you have any ideas about starting or running a business, this book is not to be missed. There are so many good ideas and useful concepts in here, that most people who do read the book end up reading it over again. It’s simply chock full of good ideas.

Who might want to skip it:

Anyone who is already “living the dream,” or who enjoys their current job and is perfectly happy trading their time for money.

Final word:

If anything in this review stimulated your mind even a little bit, then I highly recommend that you buy this book. It is absolutely life-changing!

Title: “The Power of Now”

Author: Eckhart Tolle

Overall Rating: Absolutely life-changing.

Anyone who reads this book and practices the techniques and advice that Tolle gives will experience at least some level of spiritual growth.

Who should read this book:

Just about anyone can benefit from this book. If you are looking to grow spiritually in your life, I highly recommend picking this book up–more so than with any other book I can think of. “The Power of Now” makes an excellent starting point.

Who might want to skip it:

No one that I can think of. I really think it can help just about anyone.

So what is this book about, anyway? Give me the scoop!

Like I already stated above, this is a life changing book, and can definitely have a big impact on your overall level of serenity. Here are some of the key concepts that I got out of reading it:

The Trap of Psychological Time

One of the biggest ideas to take away from The Power of Now is that most people are postponing their happiness. They have a little mental deal worked out in there head where they are saying to themselves: “If I can just get this certain job, then I will be happy.” or “If I can just get this relationship to work out, then I will be happy,” or “If I could just make more money and get all caught up with my bills and have lots of spending money, then I would finally be happy.” This is a ridiculous mental game that almost everyone plays with themselves, and it is a dead end road that will never lead to lasting happiness. Why is this?

Because tomorrow never comes – Every time one of the “goals” is finally reached, a new goal drops into place and the “happiness bar” gets raised again. Lots of people out there are caught in this prison of psychological time, telling themselves that they will be happy someday, once they finally achieve a certain goal. And it never happens. The bar always gets raised, and their happiness remains elusive. This is one of the key points of the book, and one that is well worth learning: you can escape the trap of psychological time and make a decision to be happy right now, in this very moment. How? By becoming present, increasing your awareness, and appreciating deeply whatever is right in front of you. Stop waiting for some fantasy fun-day that will never come and start enjoying your life. Right now.

You are not your mind

This was a huge revelation for me, and also one of the key concepts of this book. I have a tendency to identify with my mind. In other words, I think that the little thinking voice inside of my head is me. That’s me. In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle encourages you to do an experiment and try meditating for a moment. If you sit still and be very quiet and just meditate for a moment, you will notice that thoughts pop into and out of your head at times, while at other times your mind is silent and quiet. Eventually another thought will pop in though. The fact that you can observe this phenomenon is the essence behind the mind that is “you.” You have become the watcher of your thoughts. This presence that watches the thoughts arises from your being; from beyond the mind.

Accept the Present Moment – Because that’s all there is!

You might reminisce about the past or make projections about the future, but that is all happening in your mind right now. The ever-changing present moment is all there is. It is existence. “Tomorrow” is a fiction and does not really exist. Imagine a bug that you are going to squash with your thumb. Does “tomorrow” exist for that bug? The present is all we ever have. So how does this fact help us in our daily lives? We can choose to accept what is happening–right now–that is going on around us, or we can struggle against it. Struggling against it will only cause us pain and suffering. Acceptance will allow us to open up and deeply appreciate the details in life.

Anything that wasn’t so great about the book?

There is a bit of repetition throughout the book, as Tolle keeps returning to previous concepts and revisiting them and explaining them all over and over again–but each time in a slightly different way. This is both good and bad, as you are then more likely to remember the concepts and techniques that he suggests, but for some, it will be a bit too repetitive. The ideas and concepts were profound enough to me and I was excited enough to be reading it that I personally did not mind this repetition at all. Tolle steadily introduced new concepts throughout the book–just enough to keep it interesting, but going over them all thoroughly enough that it was easy to remember them. In that sense, I thought the pace of the book was just fine.

Conclusion

You really can’t go wrong with this one. Buy this book and supercharge your life.