Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps

Marya Hornbacher

Aug 2010 · Hazelden Publishing

About this ebook

Marya Hornbacher, author of the international best sellers Madness: A Bipolar Life and Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, offers an enlightening examination of the Twelve Steps for those with co-occurring addiction and mental health disorders.

In this beautifully written recovery handbook, New York Times best-selling author Marya Hornbacher applies the wisdom earned from her struggle with a severe mental illness and addiction to offer an honest and illuminating examination of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for those with co-occurring addiction and mental health disorders.

Relaying her recovery experiences, and those of the people with whom she has shared her journey, Hornbacher guides readers through the maze of special issues that make working each Step a unique challenge for those with co-occurring disorders.

She addresses the difficulty that many with a mental illness have with finding support in a recovery program that often discourages talk about emotional problems, and the therapy and medication that they require. At the same time, Hornbacher reveals how the Twelve Steps can offer insights, spiritual sustenance, and practical guidance to enhance stability for those who truly have to approach sanity and sobriety one day at a time.

Ratings and reviews

I am not sure what has happened to Marya Hornbacher and can't help but feel this latest offering by her is somewhat confusing, maybe even distasteful. In Sane Hornbacher basically just rolls off her experience of the 12 steps of AA. Nothing millions of other folk could not do. The most worrying aspect of the book is that while Hornbacher praises the 12 steps, I think it is important readers recognise that this praise is coming from someone who yeah does the 12 steps, but is also on a cocktail of meds and theraphy. Do the 12 steps work for her? How can anyone be sure? I am not sure if AA sets up commission for pushing its 'brand' but if so then hornbacher is sitting on a goldmine. The most distasteful element of this book is that in her preceeding works Hornbacher would have drawn in a legion of young followers and to now bleat on about the 12 steps seems somewhat preachy and perhaps cultish. Are they not filling the seats in these meeting halls? Come on Marya! For goodness sake have some integrity, back yourself, don't go down the utterly unoriginal path of writing on the 12 steps!!

About the author

In addition to her international best-seller Madness: A Bipolar Life, Marya Hornbacher is the author of Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia and a novel, The Center of Winter.