A retired software engineer looks back at his life and realizes how much he has lost due to his alcoholism and his refusal to deal with it. Hopefully entertaining, perhaps funny at times, but with a serious motif.

A vital record of the lives and testimony of brave people who have come out of the shadows of anonymity.

Many Faces, One Voice is a must-read companion book to the award-winning film The Anonymous People. Together with the film, this collection of insights, illuminated by vibrant faces and voices of recovery, takes the reader along a journey of individual growth and, potentially, to world change. A vital record of the lives and testimony of brave people who have come out of the shadows of anonymity to fight stigma and discrimination—people who now publicly advocate for the 23 million Americans suffering with addiction. Their inspiring stories, told in intimate detail, are essential to understanding the success, the hope, and the power of recovery. Bud Mikhitarian is an award-winning filmmaker and the producer of The Anonymous People film. Greg Williams is the director of The Anonymous People.

"Mom, nobody wakes up one day and decides to be an addict." The stories contained in this book are about people from every walk of life, socioeconomic levels, religious and ethnic backgrounds whose lives were intertwined with people who didnt "decide to be an addict." They all share one common bond - living with, and loving an addicted person. Contained within the pages of this book are stories by bereaved parents who have suffered the ultimate loss: The loss of their precious child. Read how addiction, whether it be drugs, alcohol or gambling, destroys not only the addicted person, but their entire circle of friends and family. No one escapes the tentacles of addiction. Like an octopus it reaches its deadly arms around us and squeezes the very life out of all of us. Our society is affected in ways we never imagined. Read excerpts from middle school students on the peer pressures they face today. Read about "pharming" and other code words used by kids. Read the stories of parents who have gone through hell, sacrificing their very sanity trying to save their child. The profiles of these children will change your mind about what kind of people do drugs. GOOD KIDS DO DRUGS TOO! And theyre dying by the thousands from high profile celebrities to the boys and girls next door. It isnt always heroin or cocaine thats killing them. Prescription pill abuse is growing at an alarming rate and parents need to know about this.

Alcohol is a killerâ€"1 of every 13 deaths in the United States is alcohol-related. In addition, 5 percent of the population consumes 50 percent of the alcohol. The authors take a close look at the problem in a "classy little study," as The Washington Post called this book. The Library Journal states, "...[T]his is one book that addresses solutions....And it's enjoyably readable....This is an excellent review for anyone in the alcoholism prevention business, and good background reading for the interested layperson." The Washington Post agrees: the book "...likely will wind up on the bookshelves of counselors, politicians, judges, medical professionals, and law enforcement officials throughout the country."

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life. Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek