Sober Starting Today Workbook - by Deborah Sosin (Paperback)

About the Book

Packed with instantly accessible and engaging mindfulness-based exercises, Sober Starting Today Workbook offers a clear, compassionate pathway for anyone seeking to overcome problematic alcohol or drug use. With this workbook, readers will learn effective strategies for pursuing sobriety and achieving freedom from addiction, beginning on day one.

Book Synopsis

A clear, compassionate guide to lasting sobriety.

If you're struggling with problem substance use, you're not alone. Addiction to drugs and alcohol is one of the most serious medical, psychological, and social issues facing our society today. And asking for help takes courage. Drawing on effective mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies, Sober Starting Today Workbook offers a compassionate pathway for getting sober--and staying sober.

With this workbook, you'll learn how to avoid triggers, manage urges and cravings, identify alternatives to using, balance difficult emotions, and deal with challenging social situations. Along the way, you'll also strengthen your mind-body connection as you practice mindful breathing and grounding activities, learn powerful self-compassion techniques, and explore healthier eating and sleeping habits. If you're ready to live a life free from the painful consequences of substance use or addiction, this workbook can help you get started, right now.

Packed with relapse prevention strategies to help you:

• Create a supportive, safe network
• Move past toxic or enabling relationships
• Better understand your thoughts and feelings
• Celebrate your strengths and passions
• Look toward the future with hope

"If you long to free yourself from the trance of addiction, this brilliantly organized workbook will guide you with compassion and clarity."
--Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and Trusting the Gold

Review Quotes

"Whether you're trying to quit, cut back, or just take a break from using substances, you'll need self-compassion for your journey, and no workbook lays out that path with simple, straightforward practices better than Deborah Sosin's Sober Starting Today Workbook."
--Christopher Willard, PsyD, part-time faculty at Harvard Medical School, and author of How We Grow Through What We Go Through--Christopher Willard, PsyD

"Sober Starting Today Workbook is a refreshing, forgiving, yet realistic and hopeful step-by-step guide for navigating the addiction recovery journey. This workbook is well paced and logically sequenced with real-life examples applicable to anyone. It is respectful of the disorder and the person. It introduces valuable life-coping skills that are useful to anyone looking for a comprehensive self-care guide and resource."
--Janice Kauffman, RN, MPH, LADC, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School--Janice Kauffman, RN, MPH, LADC

"Deborah Sosin does a great job offering evidence-based mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies to assist clients on their recovery journeys. The 'Does This Sound Like You?' component is an excellent way for clients to compare their personal situations to real-life scenarios. Although designed for clients, the book also offers activities that will help counselors in their clinical work." ­­­
--Patrick Griswold, MEd, MSN, RN, LAC, associate professor in the department of human services and counseling, and clinical instructor in the department of nursing at Metropolitan State University of Denver--Patrick Griswold, MEd, MSN, RN, LAC

"Deborah Sosin's Sober Starting Today Workbook does what most recovery-focused books do not--it integrates a wide range of evidence-based tools into a clear, easy-to-access sequence so that someone can be well supported in either entering or deepening their recovery experience."
--Mitch Abblett, PhD, psychologist; and author of the Nautilus Gold Award-Winning Mindful Parenting book, Prizeworthy--Mitch Abblett, PhD

"Deborah Sosin's Sober Starting Today Workbook is packed cover to cover with practical wisdom and exercises to help people achieve and maintain recovery. Her mindfulness-based guidance is readily combined with other interventions, for example, 12-step groups. While based on Buddhist tradition, two foundation stones to what Deborah offers--namely, compassion and hope--are crucial components to other belief systems also, so her language is familiar and comforting. I recommend this workbook to colleagues and patients."
--Mark J. Albanese, MD, medical director at Massachusetts Physician Health Services, and faculty in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance--Mark J. Albanese, MD

"If you long to free yourself from the trance of addiction, this brilliantly organized workbook will guide you with compassion and clarity. Sober Starting Today Workbook combines transformational mindfulness practices with the wisdom of Western psychology to offer readers a practical, hopeful path toward deep healing and self-awareness."
--Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and Trusting the Gold--Tara Brach, PhD

"In this beautifully written and organized workbook, Deborah Sosin addresses the subject of addiction in a way that artfully links the practice of mindfulness with the journey of recovery as powerful cofactors in healing. Readers and practitioners who complete the book's exercises and practice embodied awareness as they are guided will have a new experience of their habits. Guaranteed."
--Lawrence Peltz, MD, author of The Mindful Path to Addiction Recovery
--Lawrence Peltz, MD

"This clinical workbook is a must-read not only for people suffering from addiction, but for the people who love them. It offers a richly user-friendly approach to providing the skills people need for achieving substance reduction and abstinence. With its helpful vignettes and essential worksheets, this book addresses the core question asked by those struggling with alcohol and drugs: 'How do I get control of my addiction?'"
--Michael W. Otto, PhD, professor of psychology at Boston University, and author of Exercise for Mood and Anxiety Disorders--Michael W. Otto, PhD

About the Author

Deborah Sosin, MSW, LICSW, is a writer, editor, and licensed independent clinical social worker specializing in mindfulness and addictions. From 2004 to 2022, she was an outpatient clinician at Sameem Associates in Newton, MA. She also served as a clinical supervisor at the North Charles Institute for the Addictions, and was on the clinical faculties of the MSW programs at Boston College, Simmons College, and Boston University. A graduate of Smith College School for Social Work, Deborah holds an advanced certificate in mindfulness-based psychotherapy from the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Her picture book, Charlotte and the Quiet Place, won several national awards. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, Salon, Cognoscenti, and numerous other publications. Deborah lives in the Greater Boston, MA, area.

Foreword writer Christopher Germer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and codeveloper of the Mindful Self-Compassion program with Kristin Neff, which has been taught to more than 250,000 people worldwide. He is coauthor of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, and maintains a small psychotherapy practice in Cambridge, MA.