About the Author

Melody Beattie literally "wrote the book" on codependency. Beattie's signature work, Codependent No More, has more than four million copies in print and is considered the "go to" text for anyone struggling with family addiction issues. For two decades, Melody Beattie's bestselling books about addiction, recovery, and self-help have endeared her to millions of readers who long for healthier relationships. Her most recent book, The Grief Club, is a profoundly personal, powerfully healing guide to getting through life's losses.

Reviews

Book Review: Melody Beattie's Codependent No More Workbook

One amazing insight I had while I read Melody Beattie's new "Codependent No More Workbook" a sequel to her 1986 bestseller, "Codependent No More, " reissued this month by Hazelden's press is this: I drank and took drugs to cope with my 'feelings' about the unbearable shit I tolerated as the child of an alcoholic family.

Otherwise, I might have killed myself. So, in sense, drugs and alcohol saved me.

Yeah, "feelings" read frenzied rage, crippling fear. Flaming. Paralyzing.

I wasn't abandoned, kidnapped or raped. What happened to me was, as just one example, my mother made me into her therapist and Best Friend. She griped about her unhappiness with her husband (my father) and their nonexistent, or often subpar, sex life. I thought it was my job to listen to it. It made her feel better. And then, he would come home and start drinking. And she would look at me, knowingly. And I had to keep her secrets.

The whole drama ga