Review: An honest look at the battle for sobriety
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 12, 2013
The Courage to Surrender is a wonderful memoir that tells the story of the author's life as he battled drug and alcohol addiction and how he finally achieved and maintained sobriety. One of the reasons I liked this book so much is the author's writing style. There's nothing flowery or sugar-coated. He simply tells his story beginning with the strained relationship with his father, how he started drinking at a terribly early age, married the love of his life who was also a drug and alcohol addict, and his fight for sobriety. The book is set throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s for the most part and the first-hand accounts given about different historical happenings, such as the Vietnam War and Woodstock, were very interesting. The raw honesty provided here had to be painful to write but is superb to read. There were times I just wanted to yell at the author to give up on his drug addict wife or stop screwing up great job opportunities but he never makes excuses for his mistakes, just presents his life as it happened. There is no preaching in the story as so often happens when someone finally becomes sober. Instead he is honest about just how hard maintaining that sobriety is still to this day. This is an excellent book for anyone to read even if it is heart wrenching at times.