Over the Influence, First Edition: The Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol

I fully recommend this book to anyone who has struggled with alcohol and drugs. I happened across this book accidentally after about 10 years of problem drinking. Unlike most other traditional approaches that base success on being dry and sober, this one does not. The authors fully understand how difficult it is for us, the drug users, to quit just like that. The thought makes us want to use our drug of choice more and more. Tradional approaches base much on admitting powerlessness over the drug. This works for some, but many others don't want to be told they are powerless. This book helps you to take power into your own hands. A change...ANY change is a great one in the right direction. I was a little scared of this book when I first started reading it. I had quit drinking a week or 2 before starting this book. What I immediatally took away from the first couple chapters was it was telling me it was ok to drink. I almost used it as an excuse to begin drinking again excitedly and just employ the tactics found within. I did not. I have not drank in 7 months, and read this book, among others, during that time. In the end, I feel powerful that all my choices are in my hands and can be controlled. All things enjoyed can be done safely. I do not have to surrender to a higher power.

If you've had it with the narcissists in AA with their stories and still can't find a voice in all that wilderness, this book is perfect. Honest and forthright, this takes on the establisment's misdirected disease-model and offers helpful, pragmatic, and easy-to-implement strategies to take care of yourself--and as a consequence, those around you. Essential.

I think this book offers a valid and awesome alternative to the traditional methods. You need to have a good ammount of discipline to implement this, but it should help greatly.

I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I deal with a majority of clients who are either court ordered or desire to change their substance (inc'l alcohol)use behaviors. I have been practicing some level of harm reduction by my own intuitive sense of helping people reach their own goals. But, this book has brought me to a new level of understanding what harm reduction can really look like and how it can be put into practice in my office. Realize though, that this book is written for the user and not the clinician; I still see it as highly useful for the clinician to read. It is an easy and engaging book that I hardly wanted to put down. I have so many clients this might be useful for. However, know that even if you are already harm reduction friendly, that this is still a revolutionary approach; it will take a while to really wrap your mind and practice around this philosophy in the way its prescribed in this book. If you are a user who wants to make changes in your substance use but aren't ready or willing to quit, then this is the best book you could possibly buy for yourself. It gets past all the shame and judgement associated with traditional therapies and gets to the heart of why you use, how you can make changes or not make changes, and who you are in relation to your drug of choice. Heck, I think this can help anyone with ANY behavior they are thinking about changing. I have already recommended it to some of my clients and am begining to incorporate these ideals into my practice already.

Anyone troubled by drug or alcohol use but not interested in cold turkey, all or nothing approaches to such problems, really ought to take a good look at Dr. Patt Denning's "Over the Influence: The Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol." Denning and co-authors Jeannie Little and Adina Glickman address substance use in terms of the interplay between the individual and a variety of social, emotional and biochemical factors. The complexity of this framework does much to influence the kind of relationship that same individual might have with substances considered terminally toxic in other treatment circles. At the heart of this mode of treatment is the notion that people use drugs for particular reasons that may well be obscured in recovery programs where complete cessation of drug use is a condition of treatment. Denning and other harm reduction therapists adhere to the principle that people who use are capable of doing so sensibly, modifying conduct in ways that reduce harm to themselves and others.Drawing on forty years of clinical experience and addressed to the general public, "Over The Influence" offers a valuable discussion of drugs and other substances along with a review of various psychological and social considerations that enter into patterns of usage. This revolutionary book presents new options in thinking about drugs. It is a must-read for those involved in legal, educational, and personal questions of substance use or misuse. Anyone troubled by drug or alcohol use but not interested in cold turkey, all or nothing approaches to such problems, really ought to take a good look at Dr. Patt Denning's "Over the Influence: The Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol." Denning and co-authors Jeannie Little and Adina Glickman address substance use in terms of the interplay between the individual and a variety of social, emotional and biochemical factors. The complexity of this framework does much to influence the kind of relationship that same individual might have with substances considered terminally toxic in other treatment circles. At the heart of this mode of treatment is the notion that people use drugs for particular reasons that may well be obscured in recovery programs where complete cessation of drug use is a condition of treatment. Denning and other harm reduction therapists adhere to the principle that people who use are capable of doing so sensibly, modifying conduct in ways that reduce harm to themselves and others.Drawing on forty years of clinical experience and addressed to the general public, "Over The Influence" offers a valuable discussion of drugs and other substances along with a review of various psychological and social considerations that enter into patterns of usage. This revolutionary book presents new options in thinking about drugs. It is a must-read for those involved in legal, educational, and simply personal questions of substance use or misuse.