Addiction Dilemmas: Family Experiences from Literature and Research and Their Lessons for Practice

ISBN-13: 9780470977026 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 240 str.

Jim Orford

Opis

Addiction Dilemmas explores the impact of addiction on those closest to the individuals affected and their families. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the book discusses the stresses and strains that family members are subjected to, the dilemmas that they face, and the coping strategies that they have found useful.

• Draws on a unique breadth of material to illustrate the dilemmas faced by family members in coping with a close relative's addiction
• Raises questions and points to controversies rather than dispensing prescriptive "one size fits all" advice
• Brings together accounts from research interviews, biography, autobiography and relevant fiction in a creative and original way
• Tackles common misunderstandings at public, practitioner, scholarly and policy levels about the predicaments that family members commonly find themselves in
• Each chapter closes with a commentary, questions and exercises designed to further develop understanding for professionals and students

Recenzje

Although the book may lend itself best to a student leadership, its diversity and links to the addiction literature will make it of interest to a wide range of professionals, as well as all who have had any personal contact with addiction.  (The British Journal of Psychiatry, 1 May 2012)

 

Spis treści

Preface vii

Sources and Acknowledgements xiii

1. We′ll Be There for Him: A Family Responds to Relapse 1

2. Long Day′s Journey into Night by Eugene O′Neill 9

3. Tough Love: A Television Studio Discussion 15

4. Wives of Gamblers 21

5. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë 31

6. British SikhWives and Daughters Stand Up toMen′s Drinking 38

7. Nil By Mouth: A Film by Gary Oldman 46

8. Worrying for Drinkers in Aboriginal Australia 52

9. A Prodigal Son: The Mother′s Story 65

10. Parents of Problem Gamblers 75

11. The Tale of Caitlin Thomas 88

12. Dylan Thomas in America by John Malcolm Brinnin 103

13. An Imaginary Conversation:Wives in Mexico, England, South Korea and Italy 111

14. Father Figure by Beverley Nichols 124

15. Growing Up with My Mother by Virginia Ironside 131

16. Mrs Sara Coleridge and Friends 138

17. Five Husbands ofWives with Drinking Problems: A Focus Group 153

18. A Chancer by James Kelman 169

19. Growing Up with ParentsWho Drink Excessively: Four Stories 175

20. Baudelaire and His Mother in Chains 185

21. Fever Pitch by Richard Brooks 194

22. I Only Had the Baby′sWelfare at Heart: Concerned Grandmothers 199

Further Reading 207

Index 209

O autorze

Jim Orford is Emeritus Professor of Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Birmingham. His books on addiction include Excessive Appetites: A Psychological View of Addictions (2e 2001) and An Unsafe Bet?: The Dangerous Rise of Gambling and the Debate We Should Be Having (2010).

Blurb

Addiction Dilemmas explores the impact of addiction on those closest to the individuals affected their families. Many barriers can stand in the way of family members receiving help, not least a lack of available services and a failure on the part of professionals and their organisations to fully appreciate the nature of the dilemmas which they face.

This book is based on a combination of personal interviews from scientific research, accounts from biography and autobiography (featuring well–known names both past and present) and excerpts from well–informed works of literature. The book′s core theme is the stress faced by family members when a close relative has an addiction problem, and the coping strategies which others in similar situations have found useful. By tracing the same dilemmas through a range of contexts, Jim Orford offers unique insights to professionals who deal with addicts and their families, researchers, policy makers and ultimately family members themselves. Sources include The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë, A Chancer by James Kelman, Long Day′s Journey into Night by Eugene O′Neill, and biographies of close relatives of Dylan Thomas and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.