Positive Addiction

I read this book 20 years ago and unfortunately have a friend who is destroying his life with alcohol. I've sent the book to him to save his life. So far, it hasn't

I nominate the first 50 pages to be required reading for everyone on the planet. It focuses on the negative addict. I am not one, but I found the first 50 pages of this short book to be stellar.

This book was a positive experience for me. It helped me become more focussed at work and at home, and helped me realize that even a daily walk or some significant activity every day is vitally important. Human beings were not born to sit around, we were born to be active. Just look at the famous artists who lived into to their 90's because they loved what they did like Chagall and Grandma Moses. If you are positively addicted to what you do, then you will live a long life and love it. The key is finding your niche and running with it. A book should be written about people who love their careers and how this positive addiction helps to fuel other parts of their lives. My father gave me this book. It is an easy read, but a smart book. Jeffrey McAndrewauthor of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"

This book starting me running 18 years ago in order to obtain a "positive addition" which is a repetitive activity that you do non-self-critically that has a beneficial effect on your mind and/or body. The author suggests that a positive addiction can forge new neuronal connections in the brain to help you think better and more creatievely. The main addictions discussed are running and meditation but there are many others including such arcane things as putting on makeup! This book was one of the early books to describe the "runner's high" which others have documented. Because of my desire to experience this and other benefits, I began a lifetime program of exercise and other types of self-improvements. Don't let the book's "old" publishing date put you off--newer self-help books are not necessarily better. I've often thought that this book's approach might especially benefit the so-called "addictive" personality, but I think all of us need to find ways to alter our consciousness without harming ourselves. This book has one of the keys.