Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos

by Bucky Sinster

$13.95

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Author: Bucky Sinster

Publisher: Conari Press

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1573243663
ISBN 13: 978-1573243667

A (Former) Skeptic’s Guide to the 12-Step Program

Knowledge from a personal journey. Experiences with addiction vastly differ, but something can be learned from everyone’s journey—especially those who achieve sobriety. Author Bucky Sinister penned this book because he had something to share from his own journey, a realization that completely changed his outlook on recovery. This smart and snide book is his testament to the effectiveness of the 12-Step Program, a path to recovery that he never expected to go down (and work).

A tough-love approach to recovery. As a poet, author, and comedian, Sinister doesn’t hold back from speaking the truth in this book. He speaks bluntly about addiction and his own struggles with it. Sinister appeals to those who are turned off by the usual recovery self-helps. He talks straight to readers who struggle to buy into the effectiveness of the 12-Step Program—particularly those like Sinister, an atheist, who have problems with the “higher power” concept intertwined with the program.

A different kind of “self-help”. Sinister’s book presents itself as self-help, but don’t expect it to have the same tone as others you’ve read. The book is full of Sinister’s comedic touch, colorful language, and stories from “scumbags” that contain life-saving wisdom. An unabashed testimony to Sinister’s personal journey to sobriety and those of others, this recovery book is sure to educate, entertain, and inspire.

Read Bucky Sinister’s Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos and find…

A different outlook on the 12-Step Program
Raw and honest stories of addiction and staying sober
A source of both light laughter and cutting wisdom for those on the path to recovery

Readers of books such as The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober; Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions; and Staying Sober Without God will find further guidance and inspiration in Get Up, which should be the next book for you.

From Publishers Weekly

This self-help book for the substance-abusing artistically—and atheistically—inclined is both a ringing endorsement of AA and a brilliant piece of literary performance with poetic and savagely funny insights. Spoken word artist Sinister—a self-professed misfit and recovering alcoholic and addict—celebrates sobriety and provides a methodical analysis of the 12-Step program interpolated with biting commentary (The difference between the Bible and a Magic Eightball is that 400 years ago, you would've been burned at the stake for owning a Magic Eightball) and encouragement that is, by turns, sincere (in particular a foray into why artists are so prone to addictions) and comic (Finding Your Inner A-Team). The book is a wild mixture of autobiography, philosophy, social criticism, pop culture and nuttiness: the consummate self-help book for those too cool for self-help books. Although the author occasionally veers uncomfortably close to glamorizing his addictions, his advice is sound, detailed and heartfelt. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Step 13: Read Get Up, do what Bucky says, and find your inner A-Team character. And if you're a "normie", buy this book for your friend who thinks they are too cool to get sober." —Jen Kirkman, stand-up comedian, actor, and writer

"...a smart, snide, blasphemous self-help book written in a countercultural voice." —Rachel Swan, East Bay Express

"This book is rad." —Michelle Tea, author of Rent Girl and Valencia

"...refreshingly un-preachy...Get Up will strike a nerve in the recovery movement, which has heretofore had to convince certain people that it wasn't as lame as it seemed" —Katy St. Clair, SF Weekly

"Get Up is not your mother's coffee table recovery book. Bucky peels away the layers of fluff and sticks it right in your face. His use of comedy and colorful language will conjure up some laugh-out-loud moments…This release is perfect for the patient or counselor looking for a light-hearted, entertaining read. It combines recovery first-hand accounts, useful suggestions and scenarios and offers the reader an uplifting feeling without becoming over-powered by religious weights or flowery prose that often read like a real snooze on a page." —Jenna Bensoussan, Counselor Magazine

"If you're lost in a self made blizzard, or drowning in the drink, this book is a line you'll want to have. Told with Bucky's cracking wit, and clarity, it removes the fear from the first bite at the dozen. Walk on. Twelve steps. With hope. It's in this book." ―Alan Black, Scottish playwright and author

"I have been sober for more than 21 years, and this is the first time I have seen anyone take on the challenges of staying with a 12-Step program with such frankness. This is one of the best recovery books I have read, a whole new approach written with intelligence and honesty, and with a Bucky’s approach to the Higher Power concept will serve to help the millions of people out there who struggle with it every day." ――Tom Callan, president of Board of Directors of Changing Echos, a drug and alcohol treatment center

“[Sinister’s] iconoclastic approach to addiction recovery will make a valuable addition to the growing works in this field. Highly recommended for university libraries supporting the helping professions and larger public libraries” —Library Journal Starred Review

“Our generation, Generation X, is a generation that doesn't like to be marketed to. We don't like to join groups and we're very suspicious of trends. In a lot of ways Get Up is a 12-step book for people that remember Kurt Cobain on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing a t-shirt that says, ‘Corporate Magazines Still Suck.’ People who think Dolittle is the best album ever made…The book's very funny.” —Stephen Elliott, Huffington Post

"Every single person should own Bucky Sinister's 12 step book. Addict or not. It is an incredibly funny and interesting guide on how to successfully unpack one's mind when it's overpacked. Simply put, this book should replace every magazine in every plastic surgeon's office and every bible in every motel." —Amber Tamblyn, Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actress and poet

About the Author

Bucky Sinister is a poet, self-help author, and comedian. He has published four books of poetry and two self-help books, including Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos. His journalism, film reviews, and short stories have appeared on The Rumpus, The Bold Italic, and a number of other online and print publications.

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Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos