Sober...and Staying That Way: The Missing Link in The Cure for Alcoholism

Alcoholics Anonymous has a 12 percent recovery rate, but what about the remaining 88 percent? "Waiting for the right time to quit, the motivation? Well, there is none," writes Susan Powter in her characteristically direct but chatty style. It's the Powter magic that makes accessible--even persuasive--what has been known in the field for almost 40 years: alcoholism is a biochemical disease. If that's the case, Powter asks in Sober ... and Staying That Way, then why the adamant belief that alcoholism is incurable? Powter's combination of personal disclosure, exposé, and a program for lasting recovery looks soberly at the biochemical and psychological components of alcoholism.

Powter's national prominence as a fitness expert and author of Stop the Insanity! made her disclosure all the more difficult. But it's when Prowter recollects her famous struggle with obesity, drawing from the lessons of goal setting and values searching, that Sober acquires credibility. There was not, she remembers, any instant cure, nor should there be for alcoholism. Recalling the discipline and self-education that preceded her dramatic weight loss, Powter discovered a vitamin-based nutrition program with an 80 percent recovery rate.

Powter presents facts unforgetably: "Did you know that alcohol is one of the richest foods known to man?... This stuff is amazing. It's got calories, it's a food, it gives you energy, but ... it's a food with only calories, nothing else.... Malnutrition. You and I are malnourished." Smart and upbeat--a combination of Powter's triumph over her ordeal with the biochemical and psychological components of recovery--Sober ... and Staying That Way is like a 12-step personal trainer.