[.ca] Adventures In Fast Forward: Life, Love And Work For The ... (ISBN 0876308000)

A practical guide to help with surmounting ADD problems:
I can recommend this book very highly to those already diagnosed with ADD and somewhat familar with the disorder. I would not recommend it to someone who is looking for information about whether or not they might have this disorder and/or are looking for an explanation of what it involves - I think that Dr Ned Hallowell's "Driven to distraction" would be a better introduction. This is more of a nuts and bolts workbook with very practical advice for trying to anticipate the pitfalls of ADD and looking for strategies to avoid falling into them. I can pretty much guarantee you that if you read the book you will find at least one bit of helpful advice that will justify your investment in it. As an example, advice that helped me involved the use of a daily planner - this seems obvious for someone who is extremely disorganized and forgetful; however my level of disorganization and distraction has always prevented me from getting any use out of them. Dr. Nadeau lays out a strategy which involves gradually building up your reliance on it, with the first month dedicated to merely making sure you always take it along with you - nothing else. As to the criticism voiced below that Dr. Nadeau is condecending, I was unable to find any evidence of it although I was looking for it. She seems to put no value judgement on those with the disorder at all; neither " Oh you poor things " nor "Isn't ADD Great!" which I've come across in some works on the subject. After a brief introduction to the disorder and some of the treatment options the chapter topics focus on: Learning life-management skills, Building a strong marriage, Family Life: stresses and Strategies, Improving social skills, ADD in the Workplace,Continuing your education, Women and ADD, Self-Advocacy for adults with ADD: evaluating and creating resources. The book is short and should only take a few hours to read - all unnecessary verbiage seems to have been removed so that almost every line seems to provide usefull information (she knows her audience).

There are better resources out there:
As an adult with ADD myself, I have read a lot of the books that are out there, especially the ones that are about practical ways of dealing with the situation (I refuse to call it a "condition," like some kind of disease). This one was disappointing. I envy the earlier reviewers who found this book helpful--apparently they saw something in here that I did not. For example, for me, most traditional ways of getting organized, such as using day-runners or electronic schedulers, simply don't work--I leave them behind, and I forget to enter information into them, and then I feel terrible about my disorganization. (I currently have about 5 dusty, outdated dayrunners in a box, adding to the clutter--and the guilt.) Then when I read the section about relationships in this book, I ended up feeling kind of uneasy. There is a bit of an unspoken message that anyone who puts up with ADDers is a virtuous and worthy soul (i.e. a martyr). Years ago I worked in the social services field, running a program for mentally retarded folks with behavior management problems, and somehow the tone of this book is very reminiscent of the tone the social workers used when talking to our clients--a little too simplistic, a little too patient, a little too patronizing. Maybe I just respond much better to books written by people who have ADD themselves than to ones written by social workers or psychologists, or to books that steer clear of value judgments, even unspoken ones. I would recommend "View From The Cliff," "Healing ADD," "Conquering Chronic Disorganization," and even "The Kitchen Sink Papers" as offering much more practical information on dealing with the difficulties ADD can create in life, and that recognize that people with ADD don't like being "managed." We just want concrete ways to adapt our style of doing things to cope with the demands our current society makes.

The best after your diagnosis:
This was the first book I read when I first thought I might have ADD, and it's the best for that point in learning about what you're dealing with and how to deal with it. Clear, concise, insightful. She definitely knows her stuff and how to get it across.

FIRST RATE RESOURCE FOR ALL ADD ADULTS!:
Kathleen Nadeau's ADVENTURES IN FAST FORWARD should be given out along with ADD as a handbook for how to function in our world. Each chapter addresses a different issue such as: diagnosis, treatment, relationships, social skills, and workplace issues (and more!). It is a positive, uplifting view of how life for the ADD adult can become even better than it is now. Thanks Kathleen for writing a terrific book! I recommend it to all my ADD adult clients!

Disappointing:
This book seemed like a bunch of pamphlets strung together. Nadeau introduces a number of relevant topics, but they are all addressed superfically. While this book may have been an important contribution to education for ADD adults when it was written in 1996, more thorough and up-to-date introductory information is now available on the web. I think readers would be better served by other, more recent and more in-depth books.