Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes. On the face of it, it's a chick-lit bit of fluff, but it made me (a recovering alcoholic) gasp with recognition at the situations Rachel found herself in.

Also, Caroline Knapp's Drinking : A Love Story (probably out of print but available on Amazon) is incredible.

The book that sets out the AA programme is Alcoholics Anonymous (also referred to as The Big Book). Written in 1939, parts of it are showing their age, but most of it still rings true for anyone in recovery.

It might also be worth her while checking out Al-Anon, the sister organisation to AA, for friends/family of alcoholics.

Thanks, essexjan. I thought about the Big Book, and Codependents Anonymous book, but I find them hard to read.

My parents have a couple from the 1980s but they're pretty dated, too. Now that I think about it, though, she's an older generation than me, and might have less of an allergic reaction to the 80s self-help genre than I have.

Something short and sweet would be good for a starter, and she can dig into source material later if she's still interested.

It might make a difference that the guy she's seeing is sober. That is, he's not drinking. He's currently kind of dry-drunking, though, as we called it growing up. That part's hard to explain to someone because there's no logic to it, and there's not much anyone can do about it, except yell at the guy- "wtf, you fucking goober- go to a goddamn meeting! You KNOW better than this!"

(And I wonder why I have so few friends.)

I'm going to track down that Keyes book- it sounds right up my alley.

Thanks, essexjan. If you have any other ideas, please please post 'em.

Also, I don't know if understanding alcoholism is as useful as understanding the Care and Feeding of Your Alcoholic. Related topics to be sure, but not quite the same.

Living Sober is a good book for people new to recovery. Nowhere near as turgid as the Big Book, very accessible. Again, available on Amazon.

I love Caroline Knapp; everything she wrote was great.

Any suggestions of the Codependent No More variety?

In case anyone else is interested, I got two recommendations from my mom, with her commentary:

A small and old but good book is called Co-Dependence: Misunderstood-Mistreated by Anne Wilson Schaef, Harper & Row, ISBN: 0-86683-486-9. It addresses the role of women as being a set-up for co-dependence, but on the whole, if she can wade through the first part, it's very good and not specific to drugs or alcohol.

&

...probably would think a helpful addictive family systems book called Another Chance-Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family by Sharon Wegscheider didn't apply to her. But it is the best of the lot, as far as I'm concerned, and the most comprehensive and user-friendly.

She recommended another for people in the biz, so to speak- but it looks to clinical so I'm not including it.

Thanks for your input essexjan. I'm very grateful.

Al-Anon Publications