Don't Call It Love: Recovery from Sexual Addiction
Author: Patrick J Carnes
"Dr. Patrick Carnes is a creative, pioneering, and courageous human being. His books are changing the lives of thousands!" "I lost three marriages, all because of affairs." "I became suicidal because of multiple intense involvements."
"I spent money on sex when I needed it for children's clothes."
"I lost promotion opportunities and a special scholarship because my co-workers found out about my sex life."
Every day they face the possibility of destruction, risking their families, fiances, jobs, dignity, and health. They come from all walks of life: ministers, physicians, therapists, politicians, executives, blue-collar workers. Most were abused as children--sexually, physically or emotionally--and saw addictive behavior in their early lives. Most grapple with other addictions as well, but their fiercest battle is with the most astounding prevalent "secret" disorder in America: sexual addiction. Here is a ground-breaking work by the nation's leading professional expert on sexual addiction, based on the candid testimony of more than one thousand recovering sexual addicts in the first major scientific study of the disorder. This essential volume includes not only the revealing findings of Dr. Carne's research with recovering addicts but also advice from the addicts and co-addicts themselves as they work toovercome their compulsive behavior. Positive, hopeful, and practical, Don't Call It Love is a landmark book that helps us better understand all addictions, their causes, and the difficult path to recovery.
Publishers Weekly
In Carnes's diagnosis, sexual addiction is marked by compulsive, self-destructive behavior and takes many forms, such as child abuse, sadomasochism, reliance on erotic fantasy as a coping mechanism, obsession with one individual, anonymous sexual encounters or cycles of disastrous affairs alternating with sexual binging. Behavior therapist Carnes ( Out of the Shadows ) and fellow researchers targeted some 1000 sexual addicts and their ``co-dependent'' partners through surveys and interviews. Those who suspect that they may be sexually addicted, or know someone who is, should read this clear, helpful, well-organized guide. It shows that sexual compulsives come from all walks of life, and its advice-giving testimonies by recovered and recovering persons, combined with the author's clinical insights, point the way toward healing twisted relationships and reclaiming healthy sexuality. (Mar.)
New interesting book: Never Say Diet or Her Last Death
If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians
Author: Neenah Ellis
If I Live to Be 100 is based on One Hundred Years of Stories, a series of profiles of American centenarians, which Ellis produced and which aired in 2000 on NPR's Morning Edition. There are now more 100-year-olds alive than at any other time in history, and longevity studies are finding many of them are active, healthy and engaged with the world around them. Neenah Ellis set out to meet these people and to hear what insights, memories, wisdom and just plain common sense tips they have to offer. What she's found will surprise you. The original radio profiles will be intercut with Ellis's reading of her book. If I Live to be 100 is not simply a transcript of the radio series, but about how the experience of meeting and talking with these amazing centenarians affected the author.
Publishers Weekly
For the National Public Radio series One Hundred Years of Stories, broadcast two years ago, Ellis interviewed Americans at least 100 years old some of them ailing or confused in their thinking, others completely coherent, lively and full of fascinating tales from the past and insightful wisdom gleaned from a century of living. The poignancy of a prolific writer and Hollywood veteran who can't remember enough to participate in the interview is offset by a woman who lives alone, still rows her own boat and occasionally skinny-dips, and by a man who marries for the third time at 103. Ellis reveals little of her own life here, and withholds any intimate introspection when, for example, a 101-year-old law professor describes his regret at spending so much time on his work rather than having a family and points out that Ellis's childless lifestyle is similar. On the other hand, she abandons straight journalism by indulging in a long tangent about "limbic resonance," or getting absorbed in someone's telling of a story. She concludes that "emotional connection with another person is all that will make you happy," but she tells readers this rather than letting her interviewees speak for themselves. If Ellis had stuck with the subjects' own voices and fleshed out their stories in more detail, this might have been a powerful oral history of America in the 20th century. Instead, it reads like a radio show brief quotes with a few sound bites of editorialization. Agent, Jonathon Lazear. (Sept.) Forecast: National publicity, a radio campaign and NPR sponsorship and author interviews will put this book on older readers' radar. It should sell well as a gift book come the holidays. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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