Book: Her Best-Kept Secret
Author: Gabrielle Glaser
Narrator (if applicable): n/a
Release date (if applicable): July 2, 2013
Synopsis: Truth be told...women are drinking more today. Actually, I don't believe that. Women and advertisers are much more open about women drinking today and targeting them with big buck advertising dollars. We are living in a world where the "adult beverage" companies and bars are mastering how to market to women because of the dollars spent in alcohol over men. Men tend to be happy with beer...women want more trendy spirits and wines.
Ms. Glaser identifies her beliefs behind the causal reasons for the uptick in female drinking and treatment options for such.
My rating: 1 Star and just because I had to give it a rating.
My opinion: As a former addictions counselor who specialized in adolescent female addictions, I must be honest in stating that this is THE WORST book on special populations addictions I have ever read. It was much more of a 196 page drama central magazine article, AA bashing bonanza, and advertisement for an alternative treatment program, which in the way Ms. Glaser wrote about the program I had to wonder if she doesn't have an investment in the organization. The author totally by-passed other cognitive based treatment (support group) options.
For those who aren't in the field and imply (or even out rightly state) that addictions counselors will have a hard time with the book because we all focus on the bashing of AA, please research before you write. AA is simply a tool in a counselor's tool bag to be utilized, along with other recovery/support programs out there, such as Rational Recovery as what is best fit for their client.
The general population unfamiliar with books on this topic might enjoy taking this book as written. But this should not be accepted as a professional book. Even read by the general public, I wouldn't take it too seriously.
Unlike another reviewer of this book, I would state that it was very obvious that Ms. Glaser went into this book with an agenda and fit her research to that agenda.
Can I have the 1.5 hours it took to read this book back please?
Source:
Edelweiss for Simon and Schuester
Stand Alone or Part of a Series: Stand alone
Thanks, I won't buy it
ReplyDeleteThere are much better books out on special populations, Lois. I am not the only professional to see what this book is lacking. Another professional commented on my review on Goodreads including information that I omitted from my review that is much more industry focused.
DeleteThis book is poorly researched, badly edited and full of misinformation and downright lies. The New York Times should be ashamed of the review they gave this book. The author has the advantage of being married to an editor and he and his Chief of Staff did the book editing. It is clearly a book written with a self serving agenda. It provides no answers for anyone who is trying to stop or 'moderate' as Ms. Glasner refers to it, their drinking. It actually does a disservice to people who may need help but after reading this book and see their avenues of recovery as extremely limited to either very costly medical interventions, which often do not work, or to programs like Rational Recovery which only exist in a few states in the mid west. i am so disappointed in the New York Times and this has really changed my opinion about the level of education and intelligence of the people working in this department.
ReplyDeleteWOW, Jane...thank you so much. I am going to need to look into that NYT link. Although, I must admit it wouldn't shock me. I really have been trying to forget that I ever read this book-it was that bad.
DeleteI agree with everything else you have stated though.