If you’re the family member of an addict, you may feel confused, guilty, and scared of doing the wrong thing. And when you don’t know how to help, you may find yourself in a codependent role, trying so hard to keep your addicted loved one alive, out of jail, or emotionally appeased that you may actually prevent them from realizing they need help.
Drawing on her own personal experience with her brother’s addiction, Addict in the House offers a pragmatic,
step-by-step guide to dealing with a loved one’s addiction, from accepting the reality of the disease to surviving what may be repeated cycles of recovery and relapse. You’ll learn how to encourage your addicted loved one to get help without forcing it, and finally find the strength to let go of co-dependence.
With this revealing and straightforward book, you’ll have the support you need to take an honest look at how addiction has affected the family, cope with the emotional hurdles of having an addicted family member, create and maintain firm boundaries, and make informed decisions about how to best help your loved one.
Drawing on her own personal experience with her brother’s addiction, Addict in the House offers a pragmatic,
step-by-step guide to dealing with a loved one’s addiction, from accepting the reality of the disease to surviving what may be repeated cycles of recovery and relapse. You’ll learn how to encourage your addicted loved one to get help without forcing it, and finally find the strength to let go of co-dependence.
With this revealing and straightforward book, you’ll have the support you need to take an honest look at how addiction has affected the family, cope with the emotional hurdles of having an addicted family member, create and maintain firm boundaries, and make informed decisions about how to best help your loved one.
Reviews
"Robin Barnett has a true gift for working with the toughest addicts and the families that love them. Her book Addict in the House is a blueprint for all families to follow when faced with addiction in the home." —Heather R. Hayes, MEd, LPC, CIP, intervention pioneer featured on Dr. Oz, international certified hostage negotiator, and cofounder of Hayes, Davidson and Associates
"Robin Barnett's experience with families struggling with an addict in the home is unparalleled, and her new book Addict in the House is an absolute must-read for anyone struggling with addiction, the people who love them, and most importantly, those who enable them!"—Akikur Mohammad, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist in addiction medicine, an award-winning academic, professor in the department of psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, and author of The Anatomy of Addiction
"This is a straightforward, rich resource for anyone who lives with, and loves, an addict. ... Having grown up in a household marked by addiction, behavioral health specialist Barnett is the ideal guide through a journey that, as she writes, is rocky at best. Rather than adopt the tone of an expert, which risks coming off as condescending, she writes as a fellow traveler. Navigating a life with an addict is not easy: the most basic aspects of communication are compromised, and freedom from the cycles that entangle most addicts' families requires breaking long-established patterns. Barnett presents her discussion with the qualification that it is condensed, in keeping with the "no-nonsense" self-description of the title. Each chapter is introduced by the words of addicts, but readers seeking more detailed, first-person accounts will not find them here. And instead of answers, they will find a process, presented more as a hopeful beginning than an ultimate cure."—Publishers Weekly