Thomas W. Perrin
Not my biography, but rather a bibliographical note:
There are two versions of the title: "I Am an Adult Who Grew Up in an Alcoholic Family."
The first is the Kindle version of the original pamphlet, first self-published when the ACOA movement was in its infancy. This is just two pages, and was intended to provide a limited amount of information to the person just discovering that she or he originated in an alcoholic family or was affected by alcoholic family dynamics.
The second title is the 144 page full length book originally published by Continuum in 1991. The digital scan of this book runs some 33 megabytes, too heavy to send by email. The book is currently being revised in an erratic fashion as time and circumstances permit. I hope to eventually publish the revised and expanded book on Kindle at a much more reasonable price, and under a completely different title.
The title for the new expanded version has not yet been chosen. I'm open to suggestions. I don't have a target date for publication of the new work yet. My life is temporarily quite complicated due to my retirement. I'm hopeful that work on the revisions can begin in earnest in the fall of 2014 with publication to follow by the beginning of 2015. In the meantime, my readers, and I, are stuck with the old version. Thankfully, much, if not most, of what I originally published seems to have held up over time. Modern scientific investigations appear to have supported my theories and I will explore this in the new work. I will also be concerned about long term recovery in alcoholism and from alcoholic parentage. I am now continuously sober since June, 1975, and think that I might have something to offer on the subject of longevity in recovery. I have also become involved with recovery from health issues other than alcoholism. Some thoughts on these issues might drift into the new work, along with a better treatment of spirituality and how spirituality might affect long term recovery.
If there is any assurance or message that I can offer at this time in my life it is that life gets consistently better over time provided that the owner of one's life begins with the basic precepts laid down by Alcoholics Anonymous well over half a century ago. Abstinence from alcohol and other drugs while seeking the company of other persons similarly affected (i.e. self help groups) appears to be the beginning of a personal recovery which has the greater likelihood of success in the short term and over the long term.
Thomas W. Perrin
Burlington, New Jersey
April 23, 2014
Postscript: since the above was written, I have retired again a couple of times, moved to Flordia, acquired new passions and written about alcoholism only on Facebook. I will continue to try to make the book available on some digital format but it’s difficult for me.
Venice, FL
February. 6, 2022
