"Seeking Serenity" (for your Recovery Bookshelf)

Being a Writer in Recovery, I occasionally Review books which end up on my Recovery Bookshelf. Here is my Review of "Seeking Serenity: The 10 New Rules for Health and Happiness in the Age of Anxiety"
By Amanda Enayati

“Seeking Serenity.” “Desperately Seeking Susan.” Desperately Seeking Sobriety. That’s the word association that finally got me out of bed to write this review. Amanda Enayati, the writer of this book, is a late stage cancer survivor. And Jim Anders, the writer of this review of “Seeking Serenity,” is a chronic alcoholic survivor and a recovery advocate. Could Amanda and I be very different pies, but with the same crust? A quarter way through her book I found my answer in a term related to post-traumatic stress disorder which she identifies as “post-traumatic growth.” A favorite Hemingway quote, “The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places,” signaled my unity with Amanda. Pages 54 and 55 of her book provide a complete roadmap of the journey her entire book aptly presents. Knowledge is power, but “emotional drive and actionable steps” are required to put that knowledge into gear and to move forward. Losing stress, finding resilience and redefining values were three key takeaways for me. The Age of Anxiety, our own, which she refers to, is an age of media “engineered frenzy” and the “helper’s high” which she elaborates upon spoke directly to me as a person in recovery. “The prevailing norms are all they have ever known” is her description of youth and that pretty much describes how I got so entrenched in the alcohol and drug culture in the first place. Her “10 New Rules,” so well laid out, thought out and expanded upon, become the ways you may find to reduce toxic stress and create environments for yourself that will enable a more serene and sustainable life. Inclusion of some of my favorite  writers in her text, such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Viktor Frankl, made her book feel like a welcome home. “Putting negative experiences into words has positive physical and psychological effects,” Amanda asserts. As a person in recovery, her words ring true. Dr. Jim (that’s me – lol) prescribes that you read two Chapters of “Seeking Serenity” and call me in the morning.

http://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Serenity-Health-Happiness-Anxiety/dp/0451471512/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438051894&sr=1-1&keywords=seeking+serenity

While you're on the Amazon.com site, you may also wish to check out the book I have written titled: All Drinking Aside: The Destruction, Deconstruction and Reconstruction of An Alcoholic Animal.
That link is kindly presented here: http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO

Read all 19 Five Star Reviews in the link immediately above. 

Check out the Blog immediately below.

http://alldrinkingaside.com
Follow Twitter here: http://twitter.com/JimAnders4

"Breaking The Cycles" Interview

http://www.breakingthecycles.com/blog/2015/07/05/jim-anders-shares-story-addiction-recovery/

P.S. Please scroll through and read Lisa Frederiksen's Breaking the Cycles in its entirety.
P.P.S. Thanks, Lisa! I am honored.

A Wonderful Time to be had once more...

Book Signing, Monday, June 22nd from 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. at Kimmie's <3 Knick <3 Knack <3 Shack in Historic Gardener's Basin at 800 N. New Hampshire Ave., Atlantic City.

Bring a friend for this Second Annual Book Signing of "All Drinking Aside" by Jim Anders.

When you purchase a signed copy, you will wander through the many mazes of his autobiography and walk away knowing more about yourself than its author, more about alcoholic insanity than you might at first be willing to admit or acknowledge.
Rightly, "All Drinking Aside" is less an Autobiographical Fiction, as its cover states, than a Biography of Addiction whose fictional characters, flies-on-the-wall, if you will, reveal the truths of alcoholic insanity you may have once thought impossible to capture.
Walk away with the broken pieces of self reassembled in that strange human glue called recovery.

Don't miss Kimmie's <3 Knick <3 Knack <3 Shack! Kimmie's <3 Knick <3 Knack <3 Shack is the Biggest Little Knick Knack Shack in this or any other Universe! Mark your calendar now. Ready. Set. GO!

http://alldrinkingaside.blogspot.com/

Twitter, Twitter, Apple Fritter

Sandwiched between the Covers of The Sober World magazine's June edition is my Reality Sandwich, "This Sober Day":

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vxwh1yqkf8760q4/SW_Jun2015_issue.pdf?dl=0

I Picked Up on Impulse!

Sifting through the stacks of new books at the library (including mine), I picked up a copy of "The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification." I picked it up on impulse. In the beginning pages it states that we "prize immediate rewards and ignore future costs."
Sounds like my entire addiction to alcohol. Times thirty (years).
But I'm reading this book by Paul Roberts through the eyes of recovery. My reflex now is nearly automatically in the direction of recovery.
The right impulse.
Feel my journey to now.
http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO

NEW! "Empathy" Review:

 *****Consciousness Raised, February 1, 2015
By Jim Anders, Author of "All Drinking Aside"
This review is from: Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It (Kindle Edition)

Reading “Empathy” by Roman Krznaric left me hungry… for more empathy. There are those who are highly empathic and those who suffer an empathy deficit. As an alcoholic in recovery, I understand that becoming more empathic will facilitate my healing. Mr. Krznaric is scholarly in his portrayal of the importance of cultural inheritance and the ability of the brain to learn empathy. On a personal level, I appreciated his counterintuitive remarks regarding the sometimes divisive dangers of “we” as a pronoun.
My yearning for more empathy is sustained throughout the book. From “empathic immersion” to “emotional fatigue,” the full range of his subject is explored.
The closing chapters are a definite call to action and consciousness raising. Krznaric’s exploration of increasing empathy for future generations and distant cultures brought me fully on board. “Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It” closes with a link to his “Empathic Revolution” site.
Explore it here: www.romankrznaric.com/empathyrevolution.

http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
Read all 15 Five Star Reviews of "All Drinking Aside" in the link above.
Read Selected Excerpts from "All Drinking Aside" in the link below:
WEB: www.alldrinkingaside.com EMAIL: alldrinkingaside@yahoo.com

Romancing A Drink?

Stop!
Romance a Novelist instead, a Romance Novelist, like Carole McKee!
You already know how well she can write when you read her review of "All Drinking Aside" {January 24th Five*****Star Review at www(dot)alldrinkingaside(dot)com}.
Take this opportunity to explore her "Second Chances" here:

http://author-carole-mckee.blogspot.com/

I'm on "Pinky's Corner" TODAY!!!

WOND - 1400AM @ 4:00 P.M. TODAY
Sorry for such short notice
.http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO 
www.alldrinkingaside.com

A Reader Writes...

"Your book is amazing! Haven't read anything better or more meaningful since the last time I read the BB* cover-to-cover. I'm forever a fan." - Sara Teer of Dallas, Texas

(*"BB" refers to "Alcoholics Anonymous," the basic text of AA)

http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
Read all 15 Five Star Reviews in the link above.
Read Selected Excerpts in the link below:
WEB: www.alldrinkingaside.com EMAIL: alldrinkingaside@yahoo.com

Go to HOPE!!!

Hope All Day is the GO TO place this Saturday (link below for the beautiful details).
In short order (and all day), it's a run/walk/crawl, food, fellowship and fun benefitting the Hope All Day Foundation.
I will be signing copies of my book, All Drinking Aside, and HALF of all proceeds will be donated to the Foundation.
Enough about me.
Here's where you fit in:
www.hopeallday.org.