Product Description

Is your landscaping impeccable? Are you presentable when you leave the house? Would your neighbors ever suspect, given outward appearances, that inside your house is utter chaos with heaps and heaps of stuff? Are you overwhelmed and ashamed by the mess, but haven’t a clue what to do about it even though you’ve tried dozens of times to clean up your act? You may be a clutter junkie.

"Clutter is a wall built bit by bit of things that keep the world out. However, as with other addictions, it becomes the prison that keeps the addict in," Barb Rogers writes in the introduction to Clutter Junkie No More.

In an encouraging and honest way, Rogers helps readers to identify the symptoms of clutter addiction—which is simply a smokescreen for more serious underlying problems—and she provides solutions modeled on the 12 steps and traditions that originated with AA.

Clutter Junkie No More takes a serious look at clutter addiction and helps readers to take down the wall, bit by bit, and day by day, to lead happier, more productive lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #745484 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 134 pages

About the Author
Barb Rogers is a 58-year-old woman who has overcome great odds and lived through many tragedies in life to become a successful costume designer and an author of books that help to inspire others, such as Twenty-Five Words: How the Serenity Prayer Can Save Your Life, Simply Happy Every Day, Pray for Today, and Feng Shui in a Day. She lives in Yarnell, AZ.

Customer Reviews

A new look at clutter
Okay, I admit it. I am a messy person, albeit mostly in my home office.

However, this book is about Clutter, with a capital C--with clutter as a symptom of underlying problems. Hmmmm, people say I could have a nice clean office if I just wanted to (like we say to those with other addictions--"just change/quit").

This book is NOT about organizing messes, but about why people let clutter overwhelm them--to keep the world out.

What brings people to the place of being a "clutter junkie?" When the addict outside cries out for control, what happens?

"All addictions are based in fear and are used for avoidance. Fear of other people, an inability to trust, self-esteem issues, and the feeling of not fitting into the world around them," so the author says in the introduction.

Rogers, who has been in recovery from her own additions, deals with clutter addiction with a 12-step program adapted from AA. These 12 steps move you from the admitting you are powerless over clutter to personal intervention to having a spiritual awakening where the addict practices the 12 steps every day.

Clutter is having too much of anything, nesting comfortably with these things: books, magazines/newspapers, pets, collections--anything that fills the "hole" that brought them to this addiction in the first place--and takes them to a "comfortable place" where they feel in control of one thing in their life, even if its unhealthy.

The 12th step is "we" to show we are not alone in this. Living in clutter keeps others away and feeds our poor self-esteem--like we are living in a box.

The chapters are written around the 12 steps, and the book ends with an entire section about The Serenity Prayer and some wonderful affirmations. It is NOT through acceptance, courage and wisdom that we are given serenity. For the clutter addict that means giving up the chaos, the excuse for being overwhelmed.

Armchair Interviews says: Unlike addictions that we read about all the time, clutter seems like such a small deal--unless the addition happens to you or someone you love.

generic 12-step approach
I am sure there is someone who could be started on a helpful path by this book, but it contains far too little content about clutter itself. Even the discussions about the psychological reasons for accumulating clutter are thin and need stories with more details. The book is mostly generic praise for 12-step programs, and the last part is full of God-talk that will be off-putting to many people. Too much of the book could be rewritten with few changes for a 12-step program to address some other problem unrelated to clutter.

Go to a 12-step meeting instead
This book basically tells you to go to an AA, NA, GA type meeting for people who like to clutter. Skip the book and go to the meeting instead. Doesn't really offer any advice about how to stop cluttering your life.