No More Letting Go: The Spirituality of Taking Action Against Alcoholism and Drug Addiction

by Debra Jay

“Detachment” has been the standard message of most addiction literature for the last twenty years. The conventional wisdom offered to an addict’s loved ones has been to let the addict “hit bottom” before intervening. Now intervention specialist Debra Jay challenges this belief and offers a bold new approach to treating addiction that provides a practical and spiritual lifeline to families struggling with alcohol or drug abuse.

In No More Letting Go, Jay argues that the traditional advice of “letting go” too often destroys both the addict and the family physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Jay contends that addiction is everybody’s business–not just the addict’s–and addiction doesn’t have the right to trump the welfare of a family.

In short, highly accessible chapters written with warmth, understanding, and compassion, Jay weaves together philosophical and religious thought; new science on the brain function of an addict; the physical and psychological impact of addiction on family members; and poignant, real-life family stories.

No More Letting Go is a powerful, informative guide that provides comfort, hope, and practical advice to anyone affected by a family member’s addiction.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Addiction, Mental Illness, Psychology, Self Help

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 25, 2006

About the author

Debra Jay’s latest books are "It Takes a Family, 2nd edition: Creating Lasting Sobriety, Togetherness, and Happiness," and "Love First 3rd edition: A Family’s Guide to Intervention," both published by Hazelden (2021). She is also author of "No More Letting Go: The Spirituality of Taking Action Against Alcoholism and Drug Addiction," published by Bantam (2006). She co-authored the book "Aging and Addiction," published by Hazelden (2002).

She is co-founder of a private practice providing clinical intervention services nationally and is founder of Structured Family Recovery® services and training. She designed the highly acclaimed Love First Clinical Intervention Training Program first hosted annually by the Betty Ford Center and now at The Retreat in Minnesota. Debra previously worked as an addictions clinician for the Hazelden Foundation (Hanley-Hazelden) working in inpatient treatment. She was the first coordinator of the older adult program and served as facilitator of the family program.

Ms. Jay has served as trustee on several boards including the Care Continuum Board for the St. John Board of Trustees, and the Dawn Farm Board of Trustees.

She has designed an advocacy website designed to help families concerned about an addicted loved one receive in-depth information at no cost, GetHelpGiveHelp.info. She also founded The Best Minds Podcast, creating a space for families and the best minds in the addiction treatment field to come together (lovefirst.net).

Ms. Jay regularly appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show for 3 seasons as an addictions expert. She has also been on The Dr. Oz Show, and has been writing a newspaper column since 1996 on issues related to addiction and the family.

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quotes:

Only when every reasonable intervention technique is exhausted should we let someone free-fall. Even then, there are ways to raise the bottom, to stretch out the safety net of treatment and recovery. Addiction always presents new opportunities. The trick is recognizing them and knowing how to take action.

When the Hazelden Foundation asked sober alcoholics what set them on their new course to recovery, 77 percent said a friend or relative intervened. Someone cared enough to raise their [rock] bottom.

The addicted brain can’t make lasting connections between alcohol and the problems it causes… Addiction is both invisible and sacred to alcoholics: they deny its existence yet sacrifice everything to it.

A study showed that when people who have one alcoholic beverage a day quit drinking, their scores improve on standard depression tests after only three months.

Addiction isn’t determined by how much you use or when you use, but what happens as a result.

Good people become addicted. Smart people become addicted. People we respect become addicted.

If we take the bull out of the china shop and give it wide-open space, it calms down. This is true of people, too. Free from the need to fight against something or somebody, most of us can agree to take a step in the right direction.

“Hope’s slow sometimes… But once hope gets a foothold, a little warmth, some promise, it will, in its very nature, simply grow. Once the Spirit gets one tendril in a person’s heart, the spirit will persist, insist, demand, to keep on growing and becoming.” Molly Wolf

Before we can change, we must be rigorously honest about our resistance to change. It is easier to suffer than to change… The pain of change always gets better, but the pain of staying the same always gets worse.

Our most basic instinct isn’t just survival; rather, as social beings, we are driven to connect with one another. If we don’t make social connections, we won’t survive. Character defects, therefore, can also be defined as necessary distortions of behaviors that help facilitate our attempts to connect to a family being pulled apart by addiction.

Addiction transforms one of our most noble instincts – caring for others – into the misuse of love.

How would I want my family to respond if I were the one afflicted with addiction? Would I want them to merely fix the problems caused by addiction, or would I want them to challenge the addiction itself?

Believing that feeling ready is a prerequisite to getting ready is one of the greatest blocks to taking action. Feeling ready is a myth. We go to kindergarten whether we feel ready or not… If everyone waited until they felt ready, very little would get done in this world.

We do not battle addiction with anger, judgment, or blame; instead we reach out to the true person behind the addiction using love, compassionate honesty, and a vision for the future.

God works through people more often than lightning bolts.

There are five types of negotiation styles found in alcoholic families: adversary, aggressor, appeaser, avoider, and analyst.

Ambassadors are motivated by love of family and zero tolerance for untreated addiction.

“If those who are morally well-adjusted and talented abandon those who are not, then scarely an inch will separate the good from the depraved.” Confucius

About 85 percent of family interventions motivate the addicted loved one to accept treatment that same day. Of the remaining 15 percent, most eventually admit themselves into treatment within a few days or weeks.

[Blaine Morrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's clear that Jay knows her subject very well, and that she is committed to carrying the message of recovery to everyone in need of help, especially family members and friends affected by an alcoholic or addict. She provides harsh truths about the disease, non-sympathetic facts about co-dependency and enabling behavior, and hope in the form of solutions that work. Her book will help nearly anyone.

[Jakki · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Taking responsibility to really help someone overcome their addiction is the most loving thing a person can do - NOT letting them hit bottom" (quote from book) - it's a disease, the entire family is affected so all should be involved in recovery. What a hopeful book with a very different perspective from main line thinking about addiction.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if you do not have an addict in your realm of friends or family, you could take something good from this book. Jay shares many stories of her work with addicts and their families to illustrate the major points in her book. Her explanation for alcoholism being a disease is the best I have read.

[Janean Vivadelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have been dealing with a loved one's addiction this book may prove to be a big help in getting them the help they need. Also helps anyone who has trouble understanding addiction as a disease to really understand it.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource for those learning about the disease of addiction. It gives hope. Great detail about different types of interventions. I did find it to be heavy on alcohol over drug use. And it did have a religious air rather than just a spiritual one.

[Bank · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book whose main thrust is that families and loved ones should have a zero tolerance approach to alcoholism and addiction when it is poisoning an entire family unit. The oft cited words of AlAnon " to detach with love " and that the addict has to hit bottom are often taken out of the original context when dealing with addiction . Ms Jay is arguing that the family has a spiritual obligation to band together to intervene with the addict and save all concerned from hitting bottom . And make no mistake , the addict takes everyone else in the family with them. And the bottom is a very ugly place and in particular no place for the innocent children who have no choice in the matter.

[Beverly Kennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two really informative chapters that describe the physical changes in a person's brain during heavy alcohol abuse. The book also explains very well how all addictions change behaviors in a predictable way and what the changes look like.

[Cara]

I think this author is right, but I found this to be an exhausting read, so I stopped.