Here are Two basic get-started workbooks for addicts, and then one step by step guide for couples in the early stages of life in recovery and the exploration of possible renewal of broken relationships through a full disclosure process.
The first two are from Dr. Patrick Carnes, “A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps” and the beginner’s workbook, “Facing The Shadow: Starting Sexual and Relationship Recovery.”
A Gentle Path
A quote from www.drpatrickcarnes.com on A Gentle Path: “The spirit of the 12 Steps is gentleness and that path is a gentle way. Like water wearing down hard rock, consistency and time become allies in creating new channels for one's life. A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps is a classic guide for all people in the process of recovery. Each step is clearly explained and examined with carefully designed exercises guiding individuals in working through all 12 steps and integrating them into their life. Throughout the book, the importance of patience with the process through self care, gentleness, affirmations, and meditation are emphasized.
Although titled A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps, individuals who embark on this journey will find that harsh truths and pain are also part of the necessary path to experiencing the ultimate serenityy offered by the Twelve Steps. [my emphasis].This workbook is for those willing to face these realities that come along with the journey in order to reclaim the integrity that is so often lost in the addictive process.
Excerpt from the book:
"Over the past decades, millions of addicts have embraced the Twelve Steps as an act of intuition or faith. Millions of others were drawn to the Twelve Steps though empirical observation - they knew other addicts whom the Steps had guided to recovery. Until recently, however, we had little scientific evidence to validate the effectiveness of Twelve Step programs.
This has all changed since the turn of the twenty-first century. Thanks to recent developments in neurology, radiology, and genetics, we now have a clear picture of how addiction takes hold in the human brain. We also have solid scientific evidence that working a Twelve Step program literally rewires our brains for recovery."
Next, Facing the Shadow:
A quote from drpatrickcarnes.com on Facing the Shadow: “For all addicts, a moment comes when they realize they have a problem. There is sudden clarity—the insight that life has become unmanageable. That moment, however, is fragile. It is easily lost to craving and denial. People struggling with sex addiction find the old refrains creeping back into their thinking: My situation is different. . . . This will all blow over. . . . People are over-reacting to my behavior. Or, This is hopeless. I'm just too perverted to change.
Facing the Shadow is used by thousands of therapists with their clients and is based on the thirty-task model of recovery from addiction that forms the basis of Carnes' work. This newly revised and expanded edition takes readers through the first seven of those tasks, including specific performables that are built in to the exercises. The model also supports Twelve Step recovery programs.”
Excerpt from the book:
"Addiction is an illness of escape. Its goal is to obliterate, medicate, or ignore reality. It is an alternative to letting oneself feel hurt, betrayal, worry, and -most painful of all- loneliness. The hardest challenge for some addicts is acknowledging that they have a problem. Addiction cripples the core ability to know what is real - our most essential skill- because addicts weave a string of rationalizations and delusions that make it impossible to cope with details like jobs or families.
In this chapter, we will look at why denial holds such strong sway over addicts and what to do to counter it. We will define addiction and who is likely to become an addict. Addiction often begins simply: reality becomes too much to bear, so we try to escape through drugs, alcohol, or sex."
I have found both books helpful.
A Gentle Path is a good introduction for step studies. It works against the notion that one must do exhaustive work on each step before moving on to the next. It offers so much work to be done that the way forward is just to start and do a little as presented on each step, with the goal of cycling back to pick up more self-examination work from each step on the next journey through the book. It is also helpful with each trek through the Steps to review what was done the time before and to see how growth is occurring, what changes one might make to the work done the previous time. By emphasizing “easy does it” gentleness, the book helps the mind slip into a receptive versus reactive mode.
And the in-depth workbook, Facing The Shadow, is perfect for someone working for the first time on their first step presentation. By the time you work through the book, you should have a good handle on the various themes for how your addiction cycle works, which will help you delineate the middle circle triggers and create your Step 4 character lists. Not facing the shadow caused by our addiction is what has fed it. Self-understanding is a necessity for recovery abstinence to stick and grow into sobriety.
Finally, there is “Full Disclosure: How To Share The Truth After Sexual Betrayal” by Dr. Janice Caudill and Dan Drake. From their website, www.kintsugirecoverypartners.com:
“This workbook takes a comprehensive approach to coming clean with your sexual past to your partner. The workbook helps you break down the entire process, offering a step-by-step approach to sharing your past and restoring the foundation of truth in your relationship.
Through examples, questions, and the shared experiences of others who have gone before you, this workbook has created a way for you to navigate a complex, difficult process. Designed to be used with your partner’s companion workbooks, Full Disclosure: Seeking Truth After Sexual Betrayal, this resource can help you build a new life and relationship based on honesty and integrity.
From the website about the companion book for partners who have been betrayed:
“Have you discovered your partner’s sexual secrets? Are you looking for a way to seek the extent of the betrayal you’ve experienced in a safe way? If you’re looking for a guide to help you understand your needs, this first of three workbook series is designed to help you get started.
In Volume 1, you will learn what a Full Disclosure is and determine if it’s right for you. Volume 2 will help you prepare for the Full Disclosure. Volume 3 will help you heal post-disclosure. Through examples, questions, and the shared experiences of others, Volume 1 provides a supportive way for you to navigate a complex, difficult process. Designed to be used with your partner’s companion workbook, Full Disclosure: How to Share the Truth After Sexual Betrayal, this resource can help you heal after sexual betrayal.
About Volume 2 for Partners: Preparing for Disclosure on Your Terms
Are you unable to heal your heart and relationship from betrayal trauma without knowing the whole truth? Have you determined that you need a professionally-guided disclosure but are unsure how to prepare so your needs are addressed? If any of those questions apply, this workbook series is for you.
Volume Two for Partners assists you in preparing for disclosure on your terms by defining your needs and how to get them fulfilled, your boundaries and how to stand firm in them, and your healing by how you prepare yourself. This step-by-step guide not only helps you survive the painful experience of coming into the whole truth but also supports you to grow stronger along the way.
About Volume 3 for Partners: Post-Disclosure Healing
Have you completed disclosure and feeling devastated and wondering how to put yourself back together? Need help in figuring out how to transform pain into healing?
Volume 3 will help you navigate the healing process for both yourself and your relationship after the disclosure, including making sense of the information you learned in the disclosure and creating your Partner Impact Statement.
Created in concert with your spouse’s version, Full Disclosure: How to Share Truth After Sexual Betrayal, Volume 3 shifts the focus from understanding your spouse’s story of betrayal – his true story – to understanding your own.
While you are guided on how to put the puzzle pieces together and practice self-compassion, your spouse will use the Full Disclosure process to strengthen his recovery and begin cultivating the flower of empathy.”
I have found this workbook helpful as an important guide to working the 12 steps. Especially, as you might imagine, working Step Nine on amends. But in general, it helps to keep one in the recovery mindset of getting over and out of ourselves so that we can get deeper into ourselves and also connect with others, especially partners. It helps create non-defensiveness and more vulnerability which are the keys to the stepping stones of the 12 steps taking hold.
It is important to follow as close as possible to the outlined disclosure process, but that takes a lot of cooperation between partners which is not always a reality early on in the betrayal discovery process. Bearing that in mind, and particular special safety concerns that partners will often have, there is an important section on doing an Immediate Safety Disclosure. This can help in the early days as well as to build trust for the longer haul of disclosures and relationship reconstruction.
And, as is the case with Step Nine amends-making, life does not always come to us step by step (in fact it rarely does) and we need to have a built-in Step Nine attitude for when we may run into people we have harmed and betrayed in various ways who are not our current or former partners or people we acted out with. There are mini-disclosures and listening to all kinds of “victim impact” statements that life will present to us when we least expect it. Being prepared for such moments can come easier and be carried out more smoothly (but never perfectly) with the kind of experience and wisdom that is carried in these books.