This book is easy to read, easy to understand and covers substance abuse counseling concerns extremely well. As a graduate student in counseling, you get to read some really awful textbooks. This is NOT one of them. The book covers all aspects of addiction and helps the practioner consider his or her own biases and bases for treatment. The authors use case studies from their own practices to illustrate issues concerning assessment, diagnosis, intervention, relapse prevention, family issues and ACOAs, as well as the sticky area of ethics.

This is a good collection of literature from the Enlightenment to the early 20th century. Some of the choices were wuite interesting such as Wuthering Heights as the example of the Victorian novel, (I, myself, would have chosen Jane Eyre), but all in all this is a well put-together collection. The biographical information before each author is also interesting and puts the works into context. This is amust-have for English majors and literature fanatics alike.

The presentation of "inside the criminal process" and subsequent lines of historic accuracy were in my assessment very good. However I found that several "key players" had not been mentioned, nor had many "victims". I was privvy to the inside workings of the "M.I.C." group that brought a $500,000.000 lawsuit against the federal government. "Maturo vs. F.B.I." It seems odd to me that one of the "accused" was entirely omitted from inclusion in this book. There were many innocent victims of this scandalous impropriety. Did the author have a complete knowledge of all the players? I think not, or he chose not to devuldge this info. The players I refer to are; "Sam Maturo", president of "Maturo Image Corporation", "Mike Tusivitch" lead council for the judiciary, "Mickey Rooney and wife", "Charlton Heston" and a score of other involved players. Were they too insignificant to mention? or were they part of the nucleus of the "abscam perps"?. We may never know the truth of the extent of involvment these people had, but it is interesting that their involvement was not noted in this book. My overall opinion of the book is rated #3, due largely to the problem with "omission of information". The overall presentation and readability was "good" however I found myself drowned in a mix of names and identities that had no past in 1980, or present-tense activities of where these persons are now. If this author wanted to associate us with the congruency of facts about the"abscam", he should have presented it in a more "time-line oriented" fashion, rather than multiple referencing and "association by name". It was difficult to follow in terms of "real crimes". The taste left in my mouth was one of "incompletion", as was the follow-up of the lives of those involved. In my estimate, If I had no knowledge of the "Reason for abscam" prior to my reading of this book, I would be left in a state of confusion as to the revelence of its impact on our society, which is what the purpose of this book was supposed to accomplish. It did not inform me to my satisfaction, but did give information revelant to SOME of the persons involved.