For addicted people and their families,
whose courage has inspired this book.
With my gratitude and respect.

For everyone hoping to help addicted people, including therapists like me who regularly see the pain of failure to overcome addiction, remember what we are up against: a dreadful, progressive, and potentially fatal disease. Our failures are our major sources of learning. Our patients, friends, and families who get well teach us little. When we fail in our struggles to overcome addiction, despite our best efforts, we are forced by our pain to grow and to learn. Bless the failures in our lives, for they are our best teachers.

This is a book of hope. Today’s failures can always become tomorrow’s successes. Having worked with addicts and their families for over twenty-five years, I have seen many long-delayed recoveries that are all the more precious for the high costs that had to be paid to achieve them. I never give up hope, even in cases that seem the most hopeless. Tomorrow is a new opportunity for addicted people and their families, as well as for everyone who cares about them, including their friends, colleagues, teachers, physicians, and therapists.