I applaud anybody who can use a 12 step program to both get and maintain sobriety (note: I will use sober in this review to mean free from addiction. I will use it to mean not using or doing a destructive behaviour that a person is addicted to.) I will add that my own experience (and those I have been around) have included variable results with them. Russell Brand is a gift to this world! His ability to translate how to transform your life using modern language and humor is an invaluable resource for a new generation. This book is a must read!” —Tony Robbins, New York Times bestselling author of Unshakable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook and Money: Master the Game

The feeling you have that 'there's something else' is real. What happens when you don't follow the compulsion? What is on the other side of my need [...]? The only way to find out is to not do it, and that is a novel act of faith.” Those of us who remember Brand’s last attempt to “help” the problem of engagement in politics by telling young people not to vote might well approach this latest attempt at intervention with wariness. But one of his endearing traits is that there is no criticism you can level at him that he has not already aimed at himself; he talks of the failure of his “quest” as a political campaigner because “the egoic and venomous energy that’s in me” got in the way. When he writes with evangelical zeal about turning around his own addictions, it comes across as well intentioned and heartfelt, but at the same time part of a performance. Brand has always been his own shrewdest observer; his 2013 show was titled Messiah Complex and there’s a sense that this aspect of his character persists, though it’s now channelled into a desire to sort out other people’s problems. “Me, with my proclivity for grandiosity, I will always favour sweeping change and grand revolutions, wild and wordy statements of intent, martyrdom and marvels.” In a sense we re-write our past. We change our narrative. We reprogram ourselves. There is no objective history, this we know, only stories. Our character is the result of this story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and the process of inventorying breaks down the hidden and destructive personal grammar that we have unwittingly allowed to govern our behaviour.”Part of that change is forgiveness and the willingness to look at our lives and the world differently. Ask yourself ‘Do I really want to change or do I just want to justify staying the way that I am?” You may sometimes hear people in anonymous meetings declare their pity for non-addicts who do not benefit from the teachings of a recovery program. This rubs some AA and NA members the wrong way, coming across as arrogant and judgmental. Yet in his writing, Russell Brand makes a very similar point while explaining it in terms that make quite a bit of sense. Russell joins us to talk about everything from his new book Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions to beekeeping to mindfulness to mass media to philosophy. Listen, learn, and enjoy! More About This Show In the book’s technical aspects, it is well written - a surprise to me as I didn’t know Brand was an accomplished writer. If anything, it is at times over written to disguise the fact that it gets repetitive as it goes along. There is one theme - recovery - and while the structure (the 12 step program) ensures that this theme follows a trajectory, the analysis starts to feel shallow, and dare I say it, a bit prescriptive, after a while. You can skip passages and you won’t really lose out on much.

Recovery opens the door to compassion in many ways. First, we receive it from those who help us through the steps. Our support network shows us just how important a sense of solidarity can be to our recovery. Then, we demonstrate compassion through the forgiveness and repentance demonstrated in Step 9. When we reach Step 12, we use our fully discovered sense of love and empathy to help others overcome struggles we know all too well. This sparks our awareness, as we find that we still relate to them, no matter how far removed we’ve been through our days of active addiction. When is it that you’re going to be who you actually are?” says Russell. “I know people that I feel, that when they are on their deathbed, are going to go, ‘This isn’t who I was!’ This is, in a way, a sort of awakening tool — an awakening system or code…most people don’t engage until crises.”People often take a myopic view when they begin seeking help for addiction. The consensus is that people in recovery want freedom from their drug or compulsion, whether that be drugs, alcohol, food, sex, or gambling, to name a few.

I really liked this. It’s obvious that Russell is a very interesting and intelligent person, I was amazed by how beautiful he can write. The book is part personal memoir and part self help, following a 12 step program for getting rid of basically any type of addiction that a human being can have. I really wanted to like this book and more than I actually did. I wanted to give this book 3.5 stars. It might be the fact that I actually do like Russell Brand and the message of the behind the book more than I actually liked the book. s? Sure. When an author expresses himself with such sincerity, intimacy, and intelligence -- I am inclined to feel gratitude for the shared experience. (And never has the phrase "F*ed up* sounded so proper.) I also thought Brand's definition of addiction and how that broadened interpretation fit into our current world was significant. I bought this book (and the audio version which is narrated by Brand) to expand my understanding of addictions and recovery, and also as a reader that has experience with the subject professionally and within my family that is always looking to better understand. I've read extensively on the subject, lived with it, and worked with addicts. And I think that sadly, that has become the norm. One of the things that does come across is the idea that this is not an easy process. It is hard work. Whatever a person is addicted to (in my case, coffee), they (I) could think of a hundred different justifications why it is ok. Even though I know I am addicted I am ok with it. I am allowed one vice, right? The program goes through the process of saying no, it is not ok. It is also no good replacing one addiction with another. Also, once an addiction is beaten, it is a constant battle not to relapse. Because he's who he is, all of this is done is simple, amusing, and straight forward language. He titled it Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions. I would call it Recovery: Lose all the Bullshit. There's a clear plan to follow, 12 well worn steps that have worked the world over. That's not to say it would be easy to go this route, getting to the end of this path would mean dealing with some issues not everyone might be ready to face about themselves, but at least now they might be able to see how it could be approached and where to go for help. It's a starting point.The other message Russell preaches/talks of is that he was probably more of a mess than most people do. If it could work for him, I can work for anyone. One thing that does not probably help this book is that Russell is naturally a funny man, but he is talking about a very serious subject where humour works against it. Thought adding a load of F-bombs does not make things funnier or relatable. Some believe the 12 Steps incite negativity, focusing too much on character defects and the shadier moments of our past. As Russell Brand points out, however, they also tell us to hope for a restoration to sanity. And that hope only exists if we accept ourselves capable of a better lifestyle. We learn this when we identify our character defects through Step 6 and seek humility in Step 7. Humility cuts through the lies we tell ourselves and straight to the truth of who we are inside. We should not see this as negativity, but rather as a more narrowly directed extension of the hope in Step 2.