Dennis Ortman

I would recommend this book to anyone adults I know suffering from anxiety to use in conjunction with their other forms of treatment. Don’t expect this book to cure your anxiety alone. At times, it felt tedious and I didn’t want to go through the work but that is not unusual when it comes to thinking about or working on any of your emotional or mental issues and shouldn’t be a deterrent from reading this book and utilizing the exercises and techniques it provides you with. Overall, would recommend.… (more)

Before reading this book, I was aware of Emotions Anonymous, but not Anxiety Anonymous but I would think they must be very similar. Ortman starts out helping the reader understand addiction. He does this by comparing it to Alcohol addiction. They are really quite different, but most everyone is familiar with AA, so it's a good place to start.
When you are anxious you feel threatened, powerless and vulnerable. You isolate yourself. You avoid anything that's uncomfortable. You may feel that being hyper-vigilant protects you...and it can for a while, but it becomes a trap. Ortman does a very thorough job of explaining all of contradictions in addiction. He clarifies troubling words like paradox, control, forgiveness, God, prayer and amends. To those in another 12 step program these are probably already familiar.
Ortman walks the reader through each of the 12 steps as they pertain to Anxiety. There are many thoughts to consider, ideas to practice, ways to identify obstacles, lists of opportunities to grow for every step. He compares each step as a part of a dance, and helps you see the "we" in the experience.
There are many additional suggestions like journaling, meditation, rituals, walking, groups, gratitude lists and so on to take you farther. There is a tremendous amount of information in this book and could be very helpful to anyone who is serious about overcoming their addiction.
And there were a couple things I didn't like about the book. Ortman compared an Anxiety Addiction to an Alcoholic Addiction over and over and over again. He made his point too much. And he used way too many first-person examples. Yes, the stories and examples were helpful to illustrate real life situations that applied to what was being written, but again I got so tired of them I began to skip them.
I think the book is well-written and easy to read, and is an important addition for today's society.… (more)

I received this book as a member of librarything.com's Early Reviewers Group. Anxiety Anonymous The Big Book on Anxiety Addiction by Dennis Ortman, Ph.D is a very interesting book. Everyone experiences some level of anxiety in their lifetime. This book will help you define exactly which behaviors are driven by anxiety and give you guidelines on how to regain control of your life. I think it is an excellent sour cell of information. As a mother I always worry about my children. They are all adults now. They make their own decisions and no amount of worrying or anxiety will change that fact. Dr. Ortman makes it easy to recognize behaviors that allow an anxiety disorder to thrive so you can identify the behavior errors and regain control. This book helped me realize when anxiety was useless and detrimental to my health. While I do not suffer from an anxiety disorder there is sufficient impact on my life to make this book very useful. If you suffer from Anxiety Addiction this book would be a very useful aid under the guidance of a therapist. Once you feel you have control this book could help you stay on task and not relapse. It's not a perfect fix-all, but we're all human and our needs differ.… (more)