Melody Beattie

Another book required for a counseling course, this time from the substance abuse and addiction department.
This gets an especially poor rating not because its not readable or poorly put together/organized. Rather it is because I find the vast majority of the book, from a professional perspective, rather questionable. The book reads like a self-help book rather than any sort of serious scientific study of the issues. I suppose it may have been intended as a self-help book, but it presents itself as something more serious. I won't digress into my feelings regarding pop-psychology and its dangers, and I'm familiar with arguments for lived experience being an important component in addiction treatment. However, I think those need to be tempered with actual expertise. Especially as a grad or post-grad student, its important to take the time to look into the credentials of anyone who's work we're reading. And it would appear that this particular author has essentially no qualifications beyond her lived her experience and being treated as an expert by the pop-psych, public consumption machine. She lacks any sort of formal training in therapy, psychology, or psychiatry, seemingly only having completed high school and never obtained even an associate or bachelors degree. Lived experience alone does not qualify one to provide 'expert' advice in any field, let alone one as tenuous as mental health. I think one of the largest weaknesses here is the conceited notion that one persons lived experience not only qualifies them to provide expert advice, but somehow generalizes to the lived experiences of everyone else more broadly.
The second major failing is that her advice and techniques lean very heavily into the religious aspects of the 12 step program. 12 step programs can be very successful, and even adapted for the nominally atheistic (again, I won't digress into dissecting the pros and cons of the 12 step program), and I have seen it have very positive effects on a lot of lives. But if there is a common thread among those rejecting 12 step programs it is that they lean far too heavily into the religious aspects of treatment, and this book does that in spades.
Even as a self-help book, even for codependents or other addicts, I would discourage anyone from reading this book. Perhaps her other books are more balanced, but I have significant doubts. In general, find a support group, get a therapist, maybe get some psychopharmaceutical treatment, and skip this book.… (more)