Review: Enjoyable Read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 19, 2013
The Courage to Surrender, by John W., is a book that follows the struggles of the author throughout his life.  It is half memoir and half a confessional.  John struggles with the addiction to both drugs and alcohol and tells of the toll that these took on both his personal and professional life.  John not only wrote this book to tell his story of addiction and the struggles he face, but he wrote it as an inspiration to others struggling with similar things.  He tells of his thirty-three year struggle that he was able to put an end to in hopes of inspiring those who may be going through this now.  John tells of how he was only eight years old when he drank his first beer.  Even though John is warned that alcoholism runs in his family, he eventually turns to it when he feels that he can not earn his fathers approval, or simply fit into any social group around him.  John uses alcohol as his escape and the audience gets to see this as he gets older.  When John goes to college and gets married to a woman with a cocaine addictions, John's life begins to spiral out of control.  One that that really factors into John's lifestyle is the fact that John was born into the baby boomer era.  Drugs were more acceptably used for recreational purposes during this time, as there are even mentions of Woodstock within the book.I enjoyed reading this book.  I felt like I was reliving John's memories with him while I read it.  It is very inspiring to know that even though he struggled with drugs and alcohol for as long as he did (thirty-three years to be exact) that he was still able to recover from it.  Congratulations to John W. and his eleven years of sobriety.  I would recommend this to anyone looking for an inspirational journey.  Great job to the author.