Book Review: Smoke & Mirrors

This tiny but powerful book by Dorothy Marie England offers a fresh perspective on “The Magical World of Chemical Codependency.” It sheds new light on addicts and addiction and explains what’s happening behind the destructive behavior that drives addicts’ friends and family crazy—the lies, the Smoke & Mirrors.

I earmarked 19 of the 109 pages with wisdom that struck me in a new way, or just validated what I already knew. For example, on page 70 it says, “Extreme consequences are necessary if reality is ever to break through. The pain of consequences must outweigh the relief the addictive behavior brings.”

Smoke & Mirrors showcases multiple people with multiple addictions throughout its pages. We see people’s stories and struggles and the ways they respond. Surprisingly, within the chemical dependency category England includes an addiction to adrenaline which plagues workaholics, gamblers and over-exercisers. “Many sufferers hide what they feel to be the more shameful addiction while displaying another which is more socially acceptable,” it says on page 63.

Does this remind you of anyone you know?

How about this?  “The need to use the chemicals or to do the addictive behavior is so compelling that even the strongest bonds are unable to prevent sufferers from doing what they perceive as necessary to alter their neurochemistry. The emotional bonds of marriage, the parent/child relationship—no relationship is powerful enough to alter the course of addiction. Often, even the threat of death itself will not intervene in the disease process.”  

I’ve witnessed this firsthand, more than once.

I expect you also know someone who’s blown up their life by addiction. Maybe it’s you. I invite you to check out this simple, uncomfortable, and truthful book that offers insight and ultimately hope for people struggling with addiction or for the people who love an addict.