Ads 101 Another Chance: Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family by Sharon Wegscheider Cruse

Sasha Martinez

ADS 101

Book Critique

“Another Chance: Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family”

November 17, 2016

        The book I decided to read and write a book critique was Another Chance: Hope and Health for The Alcoholic Family by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse. The book was published in January 1st 1989 by Science and Behavior Books and it has 324 pages. While reading this book I noticed many interesting things that related to my family and I. I come from a family where two of my uncles whose had and still have a drinking and drug abuse. It was nice to read something that related to my family because when talking to someone who hasn’t been through what you have been dealing with is difficult and they do not understand where you are coming from, as for the reason taking this overview of addiction class.

          The key of the book is in its evaluation of the variety roles that the family serves in an alcoholic family. There is the dependent (the alcoholic or addict), the enabler, the hero, the scapegoat, the lost child, and the mascot. The book looks at treatment plans for an alcoholic family such as beginning with the fear of intervention and it gives some guidance on how to make it real as possible. Then there is a sight at primary care which is the instant care of the damaged family, may continue for years after and implies family therapy. Also, there are chapters of recovery which in reality no one is ever recovered in this life, the significant of Alcohol Anonymous as a treatment side and the whole counselor whose avoiding getting involved into the family’s ruse and becoming a professional enabler. The book closes then with three chapters on adult children and co-dependents, family reconstruction, and professional denial.  These chapters were difficult to read due to my own family experiences of family members to reach a state of mental health. The book implicates the practice of medicating emotional and mentally difficulties with drugs or alcohol, striving instead of cognitive development where people come to face the facts with their past and their families. The ending of the book ends with an unclear and unsatisfying chapter on spiritually as well as two appendices that gives exercises for healthier families.

        I was very impacted that the author herself was a hero as a child and then moved into the counseling profession. Knowing from family experience, it is very common for troubles families to enter and decide to go into the nursing profession. I believe the book would have been more useful had it been more broad in its focus, it is not until at the end of the book that the author concedes that alcoholism is but one sign of a related variety of difficulties that a family can face, but it is one factor that is often prevalent in troubled families. This book does relate to the y understanding of this class because dealing with drug and alcohol abuse it very difficult when you are not the person who has the problem. I have dealt with two uncles with drug abuse and I never understood why they just could not kick the habit away.  I have seen them go through so much that I ended up not talking to them and giving up on them. The one person I have noticed that never gives up on them is their mother which is my grandmother. She was always heartbroken dealing with her addict boys. At one point, I was tired of seeing her like that and I told both them “Do you not notice what you boys are doing to this family? Do you not see your mom crying her eyes out? You guys need to man up and get into treatment whether it takes you a thousand times!” It finally got to one of my uncles who went to the Salvation Army in Santa Monica and now is 1 year sober. My other uncle is on methadone until this day and is still trying to stay into treatment. Even though I had given up on them, I am glad that I was the only one out of the family to have courage to tell them the truth. As the author says that there is a hero, I believe I was the hero who got them to stop and to make them see what their actions are causing but it was difficult for me to see/say because those two uncles are like father figures to me since I was a little girl.