Claudia has over 30 years worth of cards, notes, and emails from people who wrote, and continue to write, expressing their feelings, thanks and gratitude for her writings. These are just some of them.

I just finished reading your book Deceived. It is the clearest, easiest, most concise book I've read on addiction and recovery (regardless of the addiction). I will be recommending it to my clients. Using the clients journey throughout the process of addiction and recovery makes very clear how healing is co-created with a Higher Power. Thank you so much. I appreciate your steadfastness and dedication to helping people find meaning and dignity in their (my) lives.

David S.

You are my hero, Claudia. I mean that in every sense of the word. I know that knowledge is power and you have afforded me the knowledge it takes to help me through the fog and out of the forest. I am encouraged every time I read anything you have written ñ this is no exaggeration. I marvel that we have never met and yet you know me so well. I will live the rest of my days reading and rereading the things you have worked so diligently to put on paper for anyone who seeks the freedom of healing that belongs to everyone. I have great issues with panic and anxiety that frustrate me beyond words sometimes. In fact, those are the time I read your words of wisdom and get up and start walking again. I applaud you and always will. You have the gift of understanding and the ability to put it into a way that we can receive it and use it to repair the damages in our hearts that no one sees and that we are many times unaware of ourselves. You are an amazing woman, Claudia, thank you once again.

Marie W.

I wanted to tell you that when I was 24, in 1987, a coworker who was a recovering alcoholic told me that many of my crazy codependant behaviors might be because I grew up in an alcoholic home. She told me about your book. So I stopped on the way home from work and purchased it. And as I settled in with a cup of coffee for a long night of reading I made it just a couple pages when I read a tale by someone similar to myself, about this man's experience when he was 8 with his drunken father. I cried so hard. I cried like I had never cried before because someone else had my story. Anyway it was from that point on that I began seeing things in a new way and it helped my relationship with my mom and others. So bless you for all you do and have done.

Candie W.

Your book It Will Never Happen to Me has been an important aspect of my recovery and my daughter's recovery. My daughter and I have a deep bond and unconditional love for each other. Our communication and consciousness has improved greatly because of your words. I have gained insight into both of our characteristics and why we do the things we do. My daughter and I are children of alcoholics. You have helped us on our path of healing and recovery. As you stated in your book, ìPatterns do not change just because the alcoholic has stopped drinking.î For my daughter and myself it is truly one day at a time. Thank you for you inspirational words.

Megan V.

Dr. Black, I know you hear from a lot of people for whom you serve as an inspiration, yet I just wanted to take the time to thank you (and your husband) for the moments you both gave at a conference in Colorado Springs back in the mid 80s. At the time I was working doing treatment with adolescents in Sioux Falls and you both took the time to talk with me about how I was utilizing your Stamp Game. Since then I have opened my own clinic where we serve kids and families under the pain of addiction. We have been open 16 years now and doing well and your Stamp Game still sits under my chair as it is still critical in facilitating healing and recovery. Thanks for your continued efforts to enhance the field. My life professionally and personally has been the better for it.

Jamie C.

Last week I showed your video and provided handouts, written from the material on the back of the Relapse, The Illusion of Immunity DVD. The material in your DVD is outstanding and I plan on showing it again this week, after going over the handouts. I was once an Addiction Therapist with the VA and was introduced to your material there, as well as in the community counseling setting. You have added so much incredible insight into the field of addictions. May God bless you richly for it.

Chuck P.

Thanks for your part in creating videos for detoxes and other professionals to help us ëhuman beings' to become alive, heal and again resume our places in society living life again!!! Thank you, Claudia, for your part in this AA's recovery.

Peter D.

I would like Claudia Black to know that she's changed my life forever. I'm a nearly 49 year old woman who finally got into therapy to uncover depression and addiction issues. My doctor recommended It Will Never Happen to Me and it opened a door for me that I've managed to keep closed for decades. I've since read Changing Course and am looking forward to other books by this brilliant, pioneering woman. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's time to heal and you're helping me. God bless you.

Teresa P.

I want you to know how profoundly your book Changing Course has impacted me. I first heard your name in an addictions course in my masters in professional counseling course and the expression ìDon't Talk, Don't Trust, Don't Feel:. Although I am not an ACOA, I grew up in an abusive and dysfunctional household. I actually use my own mantra, ìTalk, Trust, Feelî to break the old rules and be present. Your book was so validating for me. It was also useful with a real outlined process that really hit home with me. Thank you so much for your voice.

Kim T.

I just wanted to write a short note to thank you for your work and your help on my path to heal my inner child. The negative voices and the voices that tell me I can't do something are getting quieter and less frequent. The voices that tell me I am a wonderful person, perfect the way I am, and I can finish the job that I start (and it does not have to be done perfectly) are becoming more frequent and louder. It is a long and hard job, but it has been well worth it and a fantastic ongoing journey.

Rick K.

I just wanted to thank Claudia from the bottom of my heart for all her generous effort in healing the souls of all those affected by childhood trauma. I am currently reading her book, Changing course, and as a new student to the process of recovery (as a means of self-help to deal with my childhood emotional/physical and sexual abuse) and I am just so thankful to have found such a wealth of healing knowledge with which to work from. It's the absolute BEST guidance I have ever come across! Clear, concise and comprehensive, it truly is a work of art. Now, she's probably heard it time again, but it never hurts to say it once more. Thank you so much Claudia for investing your time, efforts and care into helping others heal and DEAL with what is truly the most painful issues facing adult survivors with traumatic childhoods. I think you saved my life.

Mona S.

I wanted to thank you for a phenomenal training/presentation. I am sure you hear this all the time, but I wanted to share it with you. I am not sure how often any one person has the opportunity to make a difference in a person's life. That is a special gift and you had this opportunity this weekend and I really appreciate all that you share, teach, nurture and model. What a gift you are to those that have the benefit of hearing you. I have a number of your books and videos, but witnessing you in person for me, and not for my work, was spiritual. I feel like I made a significant step in letting go of the shame I've carried around for a long time and I wanted to thank you for leading a safe and very challenging session.

Trish M.

I am writing to thank you for all of your hard work and determined efforts that resulted in your book Repeat After Me. Your book literally saved my life. I poured myself into your book and spent weeks crying and agonizing as I relived as many childhood traumas as I could. Without your organization, probing, and directed questioning I would never have been able to perform such deep introspection. At the end of the process, however, I was able to put things greatly into perspective and begin living my life free of the psychological chains of the past. I am no longer angry, defensive, contentious, or emotionally guarded. My debilitating anxieties and narcissistic personality disorder are gone as well as a host of other issues I had. For the first time in my life I am actually happy to be alive and look forward to being with others. I just wanted to share a little of my experience with you just so you'd know how much impact your work has had on others and once again thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Karen H.

I am the 43 year old son of an alcoholic father. It is only recently, however, that I have come to understand and accept the facts that indeed, my father is an alcoholic and I and my three brothers were raised in a physically and emotionally abusive household. It was my marriage counselor who delved into my childhood and suggested that my father's behavior was not a quirk as I had suggested. I doubter her, but she directed me to your book It Will Never Happen to Me. It was like reading my personal story. The violence, fear and denial all resonate so true. I could go on, but my point in writing is really to say Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for writing this book. It has meant so much as it has helped me to understand and accept the childhood abuse ñ to grieve and to cope- and to move forward from it in a very positive way. I feel indebted to you. Thank you for caring enough to do this.

Ray R.

I am writing to you to say thank you so much for your book It's Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood. I am the director of the GreenHouse program, a vocational and therapeutic horticulture training program on Rikers Island, a New York City jail. Most of my students battle with substance abuse and alcohol addiction, and most of them grew up with one or both parents with an addiction. Aside from the horticulture aspect, my two correction officers and I do discharge planning with the students and talk a lot about their hurt and healing. Your book is a true inspration and regular part in our sessions and sometimes a person seems to need it so much that we let them take it with them as they get released. I think that by now I handed out at least 20 of your books to my students to keep. One young man took a walk in the garden with it, and when he didn't reappear for a long time, we found him sitting in a native woodland area with the book, in tears and being able for the first time to talk about his childhood. When it was time to return to the dorm, he held that book like a treasure, brushing off the mild jokes of his fellow inmates. That is just one example of many.

The simple but powerful messages reach exactly to the heart and help start healing. The first copy of this book I found in the Lower East Side on the street, where someone had placed things to take for those who want it. I think that I was supposed to find it. Since then it became an established part of my program. Thank you very much. This helps!

Hilda K.