| This book is dedicated to all persons everywhere who suffer or are recovering from addiction to alcohol or other mood-altering drugs. It is also dedicated to all persons who may love and depend upon people addicted to alcohol or other drugs. |
| The book is the creation of many people, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, professionals with high status and people without status or even employment. What the contributors have in common is experience with addiction in their own lives, in the lives of people they love, or in the lives of people they have served while working as staff members at alcoholism and drug abuse treatment centers. The authors share a dread of addiction, but also a belief that the disease can be arrested, and that life and well being can be restored both to those who abuse mood-altering chemicals and to those who love and depend upon the abusers. |
| Because the experience of addiction is so complex, it can and should be described in many different ways. Though all alcoholics and addicts experience loss of control over mood-altering substances, each addict experiences that loss uniquely. Age, gender, family ties, work, emotional stability, sexuality, self-image, and general life situation all shape the particular way in which the disease of addiction affects peoples' behavior and lives. |
| With that in mind, the writers of The High Road have tried to address the needs of all alcoholics and those addicted to other drugs. The writers also address certain issues not often treated in print and other media: sexuality and addiction, cross-addiction to more than one drug, addiction and its impact on divorced people, or on persons experiencing crises such as illness, severe loss and failure, or the threat of death. The writers have tried in each chapter to remember that "alcoholism is a family disease," affecting not only the person addicted, |
|
