"Think, Think, Think!" NOT "Dwell, Dwell, Dwell!" -- People recovering from addictive/compulsive behavior often remain stuck in the past instead of creating a new history. Shying away from tales of old horror stories told at 12-Step meetings, many lesbians, gay men and bisexuals seek support in exploring the road into the new lives they are struggling to create.

Because recovery from any form of addiction is different for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, it requires special attention and sensitivity. Individualized, personalized approaches that maintain privacy, support one-on-one and group counseling, and provide exercises that lay the groundwork for changes, are essential for anyone struggling with addictive/compulsive behavior. Accepting Ourselves And Others, A Journey into Recovery from Addictive and Compulsive Behavior for Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Their Counselors, is the second edition that will take the place of Accepting Ourselves (Harper & Row, 1989). The text consists of three sections: Part One, "Understanding and Navigating the Issues"; Part Two, "Exercising the Twelve Steps in Your Life" (including Workbook sections for each chapter); Part Three, "For Therapists."

Accepting Ourselves And Others is written for beginners and "old-timers" in and outside all 12 Step programs, and is both for clients and the psychotherapists/counselors to whom they have come for help. Internalized homophobia -- a basic cause of individual and societal denial and neglect -- is dealt with head-on so that it no longer inhibits the healing process of gays, lesbians and bisexuals who suffer from addictive/compulsive behavior.

Accepting Ourselves And Others also reflects the changes that have occurred over the past years in the recovery field. It provides new and insightful hands-on material to meet the needs of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, psychotherapists, parents and friends of gays, as well as 12-Step groups across the entire spectrum of addictive/compulsive behavior.

Accepting Ourselves And Others offers a broad range of materials with a positive, intimate, gay/lesbian user-friendly perspective. It addresses major recovery issues, such as an analysis of alternative models of addiction, the use of professional therapists, the use of medication, switching addictions, HIV-positive and HIV-negative concerns. In Part Two, the 12 Steps are presented in a unique modular Workbook approach that has been field-tested over the past six years.

In each chapter of Part Two are left-brain and right brain exercises: creating lists, identifying alternatives, creating affirmations, visualizing changes, guided meditations, developing new skills, journal-keeping, making connections with both helpful and hindering behavior, exploring previous relationships, considering dreams and fantasies in terms of wishes, reading selections, etc. These exercises help readers explore themselves exactly as they are and to acknowledge what they discover as the basis upon which they can take an active role in the process of accepting themselves -- and others.

Why Is This Book Needed?

In the United States, at least one person in ten suffers from some form of dependency on addictive/compulsive behavior. In the gay and lesbian community, it appears that this ratio leaps to one in three! Individuals, as well as their communities, continue to be in deep denial of these appalling statistics.

In spite of this denial, over 20,000 copies of the first edition of Accepting Ourselves were sold from 1989 to 1994. Accepting Ourselves was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Non-Fiction, and has been on the Hazelden list of Educational Materials since it first appeared. The need for cogent information about therapy and the use of the 12 Steps that will reach out to gay men, lesbians and bisexuals has been amply demonstrated by the use of this book by individuals and groups all over the U.S. and abroad.

The need continues to grow for more current information that will speed the recovery progress of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals. In spite of all of the other titles in the field of addiction, the audience for Accepting Ourselves And Others is very large: gay/nongay/bisexual men and women and groups in all of the 12-Step programs, individuals not in any program or even in recovery, psychotherapists working with clients with compulsive behavior issues, school counselors, parents and family and friends of lesbians and gays.

Accepting Ourselves And Others presents a useful Reference Bibliography for the entire field of recovery. Valuable Appendices are also identified.

Accepting Ourselves And Others provides everyone with a deeper understanding of certain conditions which many gay men and lesbians, for most of their lives, have denied or minimized. -- To accept ourselves without any intellectual understanding of what we are accepting keeps us always off-balance, always at the mercy of the next assault. This is a road-map written for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to provide an important dimension, as well as an experience-based context and perspective for the process of healing that is necessary in recovery from addictive/compulsive behavior.

In a normal, healthy growth process, the individual searches for knowledge and understanding. Wanting to belong, to be part of society, many homosexuals deny their homosexuality to the world (and often to themselves); wanting to recover, they need intellectual as well as emotional supports to enhance the process of acceptance of their sexuality. Those who have already begun the recovery process from addictive/compulsive behavior are constantly looking for insightful material to provide them with a sense of safety and self-identification in the midst of their struggle.

For gays, lesbians and bisexuals who live in large cities with specifically identified 12-Step meetings in each of the recovery programs, along with other kinds of support groups, there are extensive resources to encourage the process. For those who live far from these centers, and for those whose lives are painfully closeted, there is a significant need for additional perspective and support. This book provides an understanding and understandable companion for those who need one in times of discouragement and stress.

Many parents, spouses, children and friends of gays, lesbians and bisexuals, those in other 12-Step programs like Al-Anon, Adult Children of Alcoholics, etc., and those who do not participate in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, or any of these support systems, often suffer from some form of "alcohomophobia" -- fear of the gay or lesbian substance abuser. For their own recovery, they need to better understand the predicament of their loved ones, as well as the efforts they can make themselves to focus on their own well- being. We have written Accepting Ourselves And Others to provide a perspective in which they can participate positively in the recovery process instead of continuing to suffer from either guilt over the past or fear of the future.

Psychotherapists who work with gays, lesbians and bisexuals will also find this book useful because it provides specific details about the steps of the healing process along with useful information about the experience and perspective of those who have come to them for help.

Nongay men and women who are concerned with addictive/compulsive behavior and the process of recovery may also find useful insights and Workbook exercises to assist them in their understanding of this journey. Accepting Ourselves And Others explores the learning process in which individuals become active participants in their own recovery and freedom from addictive/compulsive behavior.

Over fifteen years have passed since my daughter, Kathryn, and I began our journey in recovery. This book that we have written together is a record of our own experience encountering the obstacles and challenges of recovery in our lives and in the lives of those we have had the privilege of working with, individually or in groups. Motivating us to develop this new edition has been our personal commitment to help others who, like us, are still finding the way. We hope you will find it a useful companion for your journey.

After it was published in 1989, many readers wrote and shared their insights and experience of using Accepting Ourselves. With this new publication, we are looking forward to receiving comments from everyone who wishes to write to us. We know that this will be invaluable for future editions. Please let us hear from you either through our publisher, or on the Website we have created for this purpose.