Melody Beattie


Melody Beattie is an American author of self-help books on codependent relationships.

Education and career

Born Melody Vaillancourt in Minneapolis, Beattie graduated from high school with honors. She began drinking at age 12, was a full-blown alcoholic by age 13, and a junkie by 18.
Beattie authored 18 other books including Codependent No More, Beyond Codependency, The Language of Letting Go and Make Miracles in Forty Days: Turning What You Have into What You Want, published in 2010. Several of her books have been published in other languages.

Ideas

Beattie, along with Janet G. Woititz and Robin Norwood, were popularizers of science, helping to digest and explain the work of psychiatrist Timmen L. Cermak, author of Diagnosing and Treating Co-Dependence.
All three contributed to the general emergence of the idea that addiction to a person was a possibility.
Codependent No More was published by the Hazelden Foundation
Beattie's early works also served as the first the Big Book for a 12-Step program called Co-Dependents Anonymous. Although "CoDA" now has a conference-approved '"the Big Book" of its own, Beattie's works continue to be central texts in some CoDA meetings.