This book should get a higher rating. The sections on Facing Illusions, Detaching, and Setting Healthy Boundaries are incredibly valuable. These make up three of the four areas of work the book covers. The remaining area however is spirituality.

The book defines this as finding a higher power and recognizing that you are not in full control of your life. There is something here that is true, but the message is tangled in all this talk of higher powers. While it attempts to leave that part open to interpretation, I could not help but feel that it fell into the trap many religious authors do trying to "include" atheists but ultimately using language that excludes them. Because of this, I cannot recommend this book, even though at different points I want to.

I want to be able to recommend this book when its talking about setting boundaries, not just in the things that I will and will not allow in my life, but simply understanding the boundary that exists between myself and another person. And simple ways to frame things to maintain that separation.

This book should get four stars just for including Appendix C, Characteristics of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (Woitoz, 1990). Those two pages were eye opening. I joked to a friend that I was offended to open a book and see such a clean, concise description of me, and that I should demand royalties.

But even if it wasn't the authors intention, and even if it did not affect others the way it did me, I cannot recommend a book that made me feel so excluded for being an atheist