cover image Double Duty: Dual Dynamics Within the Chemically Dependent Home

Double Duty: Dual Dynamics Within the Chemically Dependent Home

Claudia A. Black. Ballantine Books, $25 (587pp) ISBN 978-0-345-36152-3

Adult children of alcoholics will here recognize the roots of their trauma and benefit from this voluminous guide to recovery by psychologist Black ( It'll Never Happen to Me ), a founder of the ACOA movement. She addresses ACOAs, whose recovery, she stresses, requires coming to terms with such additional traumas as physical or sexual abuse, chemical or food addiction, and problems specific to only children, the physically disabled, gays and minorities. Forty-one often searing case histories, accompanied by the author's empathetic commentary, illustrate that such victims suffer from loneliness, guilt, low self-esteem and emotional detachment. Regardless of widely differing problems, a common path to recovery and rebuilding trust in themselves and others, Black demonstrates, lies in acknowledging and understanding such feelings. Major ad/ promo; author tour. (Oct.)