Have you ever thought of gaining wisdom by reading comics?

Dr Abraham J. Twerski is a renowned psychiatrist and founder of Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pennsylvania. The Gateway Center adopts the principles of "Twelve Steps" as the basic foundation of a person's change process. In the past 30 years, the Center has helped a lot of people with problems of alcoholism and drug abuse to recover and resume a healthy life. Dr Twerski found that insightful cartoons could help him convey concepts of psychology to his psychiatric patients more effectively. Characters of the comics just reflect many of human personalities and behaviour.

In the book of "Waking Up Just in Time", Dr Twerski shows how we can use the "Twelve Steps" approach to cope with life stress and overcome personality weaknesses such as laziness, procrastination, inferiority, arrogance, avoidance and others. He calls on Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and friends to help illustrate his points in a funny and humour way.

What is "Twelve Steps"?

In 1930s, two men whose lives had been ruined by their drinking devised a method of recovery based on mutual help. Out of this modest beginning emerged the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, which now has thousands of groups around the world and millions of participants. The great success of this programme led to its adoption by persons with problems other than alcoholism who were unable to overcome their problems with traditional modes of treatment. Similar fellowships such as Narcotic Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Gambler Anonymous, Pills Anonymous, Sex and Love Anonymous and others were established.

Dr Twerski considered the twelve-step programme not confined to helping addiction problems. Principles and values of "Twelve Steps" are also useful for tackling other problems of living that so often appear insoluble. The essence of "Twelve Steps" includes honesty, faith, surrender, soul searching, integrity, acceptance, humility, willingness to compensate, seeking forgiveness, maintenance, spiritual contact and services to others.

I love the message from the book - improving one's personality is not an easy ride, but people actually have tremendous potentials to improve themselves and make use of his or her own strengths to help others. Waking up just in time, life can be much more meaningful and happier.

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