Life can get messy and painful just when we think we're doing well. Roots of personal and generational trauma can break the surface again unexpectedly.

It happened to Ian Morgan Cron in the form of a relapse at an unlikely time in his life: thirty years of sobriety from alcohol, the happy surprise of publishing success, life going well by most measures. Yet despite all his hard work processing the past, it came back to bite him. He began self-medicating under cover of prescription drugs and landed in residential rehab.

In The Fix Workbook, which accompanies the book of the same name, Ian employs his characteristic humor and pithy wit—along with some agonizing self-disclosure—to guide readers through his own mid-life double-take on the 12 Steps. Yes, they save the lives of addicts by getting users into sobriety. But they also lead individuals into profound spiritual awakenings, as millions of members across eight decades of AA history have testified.

"I'm not an addiction counselor. I'm not a researcher into the science of addiction. I'm not a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating people with substance-use disorders," writes Ian. "But my relapse and the solution I found for it are fresh and vivid in my mind. What I've gleaned is worth more to me now than ever. Otherwise, I wouldn't have asked you to come with me on this journey. If you don't mind following a gimpy guide who can help you trudge the road to recovery, then I'm your guy."