Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions

Product Information

As I write this review I am 600 days sober (I didn't know the exact number before starting this review. It just worked out well.) I really wanted to like this book and more than I actually did. I wanted to give this book 3.5 stars. It might be the fact that I actually do like Russell Brand and the message of the behind the book more than I actually liked the book. I've never been a huge fan of Russell Brand, but even before reading this I thought it was pretty fair to say he's someone who just might have something to offer on the subject of addiction. Actually, I was surprised by just how disarming his honesty was in the book, the level of brutal self-reflection he achieves in his writing here, and clearly in his path to coping with various addictions, was both moving and inspiring. It's not easy taking a long hard look at yourself, at the choices that you've made and the inner workings of your mind; and not just looking but seeing what and why and how and then maybe, just maybe, having the strength and courage to change yourself. This is where I open myself up for criticism. I accept that the 12 step program does help many. I know a few people who are clean and sober exclusively due to it. I also know many more who have tried it and it has not worked. Even Russell talks about it as a cult. A helpful cult to many but one that has its own ingrained problems. It is not the only way to maintain sobriety.

But what is an addiction? Russell says it’s “something that you do a lot, it’s not good for you, you don’t want to do it, and you can’t stop.” At its core, addiction is really the result of reaching for something external that already exists internally — but exists in a place that’s either unknown or inaccessible. Do we really overcome addiction, or is it an ongoing struggle that requires constant attention and maintenance? Most people that get involved with twelve-step programs go, ‘Oh, wow. Everyone should be doing this!'” says Russell Brand, author of Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions. “Because of course once you get rid of drugs and alcohol one day at a time, you start to realize that drugs and alcohol were never the problem. The problem was your own emotional state — your own reaction to the world.” This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud.... My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse." (Russell Brand)

When you start to eat, drink, wank, spend, obsess, you have lost connection to the great power within you and others. The power around all things. There is something speaking to you and you don’t understand it because you don’t speak its language - so you try to palm it off with porn but it’s your spirit and it craves connection. Russell Brand is no stranger to making his mistakes in the public eye, but he emphatically does want to teach others the lessons he has learned. Recovery is unashamedly a “self-help” book based on the 12-step programme used by Alcoholics Anonymous and related groups, rewritten in Brand’s characteristically rococo style to be applied to every kind of addictive behaviour from social media to consumerism, to which we are all hostage to some degree, in Brand’s view: “If you’re like me, you’ll begin to see that you have learned to live with dissatisfaction, always vaguely aggrieved, believing there is nothing better out there for you. There is.” If we all feel we are alone then how alone are we? If we all feel worthless then who is the currency of our worth being measured against?” This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud...My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse.” — Russell Brand

Because he's who he is, all of this is done is simple, amusing, and straight forward language. He titled it Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions. I would call it Recovery: Lose all the Bullshit. There's a clear plan to follow, 12 well worn steps that have worked the world over. That's not to say it would be easy to go this route, getting to the end of this path would mean dealing with some issues not everyone might be ready to face about themselves, but at least now they might be able to see how it could be approached and where to go for help. It's a starting point. One of the things that does come across is the idea that this is not an easy process. It is hard work. Whatever a person is addicted to (in my case, coffee), they (I) could think of a hundred different justifications why it is ok. Even though I know I am addicted I am ok with it. I am allowed one vice, right? The program goes through the process of saying no, it is not ok. It is also no good replacing one addiction with another. Also, once an addiction is beaten, it is a constant battle not to relapse. This book has that raw authenticity and truth that I love about the podcast. His openness to new ideas and to self-growth. This book takes Alcoholics Anonymous' twelve-step program (something I'd not heard of before starting this book) and adds Russell Brands honest, comedic twist to it. His writing is sometimes magically whimsical and sometimes dark and gritty. He shares some of his own experiences with the twelve-step program and puts it into new wording. You don't have to be dealing with a specific addiction to get things from this book. There's a lot in here, all fascinating and thoughtful and anyone interested in self-growth or who may be feeling anxious or dissatisfied with life would benefit from giving this a try. s? Sure. When an author expresses himself with such sincerity, intimacy, and intelligence -- I am inclined to feel gratitude for the shared experience. (And never has the phrase "F*ed up* sounded so proper.) I also thought Brand's definition of addiction and how that broadened interpretation fit into our current world was significant. I bought this book (and the audio version which is narrated by Brand) to expand my understanding of addictions and recovery, and also as a reader that has experience with the subject professionally and within my family that is always looking to better understand. I've read extensively on the subject, lived with it, and worked with addicts. And I think that sadly, that has become the norm.Wow. A few months ago my mum told me about this podcast she had started listening to called 'Under the Skin' created and hosted by Russell Brand. I was intrigued by the things she told me about it and so started listening and was captivated by the guests he had on, the topics they discussed and the incredibly honest and vulnerable way he shared parts of his own story. Fast forward a few months and from listening to his podcast I learnt about Russell Brand's newest book Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions. Unless you stay — moment to moment — vigilant about your patterns, they will reassert,” says Russell. Listen to this episode of The Art of Charm in its entirety to learn more about how Russell handles his addiction to social media, why you have to be willing to confront pain to grow, what addiction wants, why confession is a tradition that works, patterns Russell identifies within himself and how he works to break their hold on him, what’s involved in the amends process, what the secular world can learn from religion, why Russell has been a vegetarian since age fourteen, why Russell has waited until now to write this book, how Russell has acted as a tool of reconciliation for Jordan, and much more. I think it’s part of being human. To carry a wound. A flaw. And again, paradoxically, it is only by facing it that we can progress” This interview with comedian, actor, author, and activist Russell Brand has been a long time in the making and almost didn’t happen — but we’re so glad it did.

But it’s also human to believe in something greater within, and this is one of the many ways to find that. With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his fourteen years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction—from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not “Why are you addicted?” but "What pain is your addiction masking? Why are you running—into the wrong job, the wrong life, the wrong person’s arms?"This is definitely a more accessible guide to the 12 steps than the "Big Blue Book". It is also a lot less patronising and gives better examples. This kind of self help book is needed and I am glad it exists. I am also glad of my own sobriety and although I don't follow all the steps some of them are just part of being a decent human being. In chemistry, when two substances are introduced, if either component reacts at all then both are changed forever’ Even when ayahuasca seems to solve his problems with alienation and depression, he finds reason to worry: “A wound that needed status to avoid intimacy has been healed. I was healthy, I was in a relationship with someone who had a happy childhood – how would I now find the motivation to earn attention from strangers?’

Russell Brand is an extremely intelligent, strangely likeable and often hilarious man. He has made mistakes in life (one rather famous one involving Jonathan Ross will probably never be forgotten) but he has also overcome a lot too. This book goes through how he has managed to maintain sobriety for many years. Brand doesn't give us anything new here other than his own experience and testimony of the 12-Step program, but he does it with more insight, expanding the concept of *Higher Power* with wisdom and his own comedic touch. He applies the 12-steps to a wide variety of the obstacles that might be keeping us from being the person we are meant to be (drugs, alcohol, food, anger, selfishness, depression, etc.). Rather than just educating myself, I came away with a desire to improve myself and be a little more at peace in my environment, and a little enlightenment. Some clinicians argue against the 12 Step program concerned that a participant would only be replacing one addiction with another...I think Brand gives an eloquent argument against that opinion.I don’t wake up in the morning and think, ‘Wow, I’m on a planet in the Milky Way, in infinite space, bestowed with the gift of consciousness, which I did not give myself, with the gift of language, with lungs that breathe and a heart that beats, none of which I gave myself, with no concrete understanding of the Great Mysteries, knowing only that I was born and will die and nothing of what’s on either side of this brief material and individualized glitch in the limitless expanse of eternity and, I feel, I feel love and pain and I have senses, what a glorious gift! I can relate, and create and serve others or I can lose myself in sensuality and pleasure. What a phenomenal mystery!’ Most days I just wake up feeling a bit anxious and plod a solemn, narrow path of survival, coping. ‘I’ll have a coffee’, ‘I’ll try not to reach for my phone as soon as I stir, simpering and begging like a bad dog at a table for some digital tidbit, some morsel of approval, a text, that’ll do”