Beattie, Melody :

Beattie was a struggling single parent of two children and freelance author and journalist cranking out stories for a small-town daily newspaper in 1986 when she came up with a book idea. She wanted to write a book about what happens to people when they love someone who is addicted to alcohol and other drugs.

"There were many books out there about how to help an addict or alcoholic. Nobody was talking about how an addict impacts the lives of the people around him or her, and how crazy you can become when you love someone who is addicted," Beattie said. "Even though I was sober, I didn't know how crazy I could get until it happened to me." Twenty publishers turned down Beattie's book proposal. "It's a good idea, but we don't think there's that many codependents out there," they wrote back.

Hazelden, however, a treatment center and recovery publisher based in Minnesota, saw a need for the book. The publisher understood how families of alcoholics suffer and believed Beattie's book idea would help people. Beattie marched to the welfare department, asked for enough financial help to make it through the three months it would take her to write the book, then locked herself in a basement office and cranked out Codependent No More.

Codependent No More has now sold 3.5 million copies. Beattie has since written nine more books, five for major publishing houses on the east and west coasts. She relocated from Minnesota to California, and she has long-since paid back the welfare department. Beattie has appeared in the pages of Newsweek and People and has been a regular guest on Geraldo and Oprah. Playing It By Heart is Beattie's first original book for Hazelden since 1990; the book is a return to her recovery roots that first brought her national recognition.

"Melody Beattie is an American phenomenon . . . She connects with age-old quests for self-improvement and rebirth. . . And she understands being overboard, which helps her throw best-selling lifelines to those still adrift."

--Time

"This book goes beyond how we hurt to how we heal."

--Veronica Ray, author of Choosing Happiness

Hazelden Foundation Web Site, February, 2002

You're learning to let go, to live your life free of the grip of someone else's problems. And yet you find you've just started on the long journey of recovery. Let Melody Beattie, author of the classic Codependent No More, help you along your way. A guided tour past the pitfalls of recovery, Beyond Codependency is dedicated to those struggling to master the art of self-care. It is a book about what to do once the pain has stopped and you've begun to suspect that you have a life to live. It is about what happens next.

In simple, straightforward terms, Beattie takes you into the territory beyond codependency, into the realm of recovery and relapse, family-of-origin work and relationships, surrender and spirituality. With personal stories, hard-won insights, and activities, her book teaches the lessons of dealing with shame, growing in self-esteem, overcoming deprivation, and getting past fatal attractions long enough to find relationships that work.