Click here to return to book details FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Email: publicity@regnery.com Phone: 202-216-0600 WARDING OFF SCHOOL VIOLENCE AND DRUG ADDICTION BEFORE THEY BECOME A REALITY Pioneering addiction counselor John Kelly and award-winning criminal reporter Brian Karem share how From the quietest rural town to the noisiest, crowded city, violence and drug abuse have spread like an epidemic. Pioneering addiction counselor John Kelly has been treating those with addictive behavior for over 15 years and award-winning investigative reporter Brian Karem has analyzed criminal behavior for the acclaimed TV Show America's Most Wanted. Experts in detecting the warning signs of destructive behavior, their no-nonsense book, WARNING SIGNS: A Guidebook for Parents — How to Read the Early Signals of Low Self-Esteem, Addiction, and Violence in Your Children (LifeLine Press; 0-89526-18948 $21.95), provides unshakable evidence that behind this epidemic — the root cause of all addictive illness and most violent behavior — is low self-esteem. What they assert is perhaps a bitter pill for some and not without controversy. To begin with, the authors eschew genetic predisposition to addiction for several reasons, among them, "Low self-esteem is prevalent in drug and alcohol abusers years before drugs are used," they say. "A person walking around feeling he is somehow not as good as others does not need a defective gene on which to blame his pain." Preventing low self-esteem begins with specific gender parenting — fathers for boys and mothers for girls, they say. Those involved with school violence are most often boys, and "it is also widely reported that those involved have a poor relationship with the same-gender parent — the father." They also assert that children who live by strict rules are more likely to be drug-free teenagers, "But we live in a time where disconnect between parent and child is the norm, and apathetic parenting has taken over. By far the largest problem we face with early intervention is the family dynamic: parents want the drug problem cured but don't want to deal with the fact that they are part of the problem." Kelly and Karem also provide persuasive and ample evidence that misdirected and unresolved anger — stemming from low self-esteem because of neglect and abuse — is also a potent force for fueling addictive behavior and violence. Before addiction and violence take hold there is a common array of manifested emotional dynamics and behaviors, such as taking wild chances, becoming a fawning pleaser, being indecisive over the simplest things, poor hygiene, tardiness, missing money from a parent's wallet, sleeping too little or too much, extreme personality changes such as a violent fight with a sibling or abusing the family pet, and going out late at night. "Many addictions have similar symptoms but are all part of the same disease: low self-esteem," they note. In WARNING SIGNS, Kelly and Karem share how to build self-worth; how to identify low self-esteem and stop it before it progresses into substance abuse, compulsive gambling, addictive illness, violence, or depression; how to provide sensible interventions and correct — individualized — treatment; and how to allow for healthy expressions of anger. Filled with informative case studies and replete with useful information, WARNING SIGNS is a sobering and straightforward look at what feeds addicts and violent individuals. John Kelly and Brian Karem share the useful and important findings and offer prevention techniques that can stop these anti-social and doomed behaviors. Click here to order from Amazon: Click here to return to book details