Phoenix is rising

Jul 15 2005 By CLAIR FULLARTON

A BOOK co-written by the Kilmarnock Standard’s business reporter has catapulted into Amazon UK’s Hot 25 list of best-selling books on addictions just six weeks after it was published.

‘Phoenix in a Bottle’, written by married couple and former alcoholics Lilian and Murdoch MacDonald, has entered the chart in 12th position.

The couple’s book shows that alcoholism is not a disease or illness, but a self-harming behaviour problem rooted in childhood, which alcoholics can correct and be able to drink responsibly again if and when they so wish.

Lilian and Murdoch’s lives were devastated by alcoholism, but they have now recovered so completely that they not only lead normal lives again, but are also able to drink in a perfectly sociable manner once more.

That goes against the teaching of Alcoholics Anonymous and of many alcoholism treatment centres throughout the world.

But Lilian, 61, and Murdoch, 58, believe that lifelong sobriety is not the solution to alcoholism, as this only treats the symptoms and not the causes of the problem, and is merely a damage limitation exercise.

The couple argue that alcoholism — in common with other self-harming disorders like bulimia, anorexia and self-mutilation — often stems from problems experienced in childhood.

And if these problems can be identified and properly addressed, then the problem behaviour can be cured.

Ten years ago, the couple had hit rock bottom, sleeping rough for two weeks on the streets of Cambridge, where a quarter of a century previously as an undergraduate Murdoch had received an honours degree in English Literature at Magdalene College.

They had moved to Cambridge from Ayr, with the idea of Murdoch doing research for a doctorate, but had reverted to their old habits, started binge drinking, and were thrown out of their lodgings.

After a fortnight, and when they were just about at the end of their tether, two nurses on their way home after a Saturday night out took pity on Lilian and Murdoch, bought them a cup of tea and found them a place in a homeless hostel.

They spent the next year there getting to the roots of their alcoholism. They tried AA one last time, before concluding that it was not for them.

Instead, by reading psychology, they decided that the causes of their alcoholic behaviour lay in problems experienced during childhood, and that once these problems were realised and addressed, there was no longer any need for escape through alcoholism, and they could even drink normally like other people again.

Ten years after selling newspapers from a stand in Market Square, Cambridge, so that he and Lilian could get back on their feet financially, Murdoch is now a freelance business and financial journalist, and also runs his own public relations consultancy.

‘Phoenix in a Bottle’ by Lilian and Murdoch MacDonald is published by Melrose Books and is priced at £16.99.

It is available through good bookshops, or you can buy it online direct from the publishers by logging on to www.melrosebooks.com.