Summarizing what I believe to be her modus operandi, it's to: (1) gather information about what can help an alcoholic recover from their addiction without withdrawal or craving symptoms,
(2) provide services and products that help alcoholics recover from their addictions to alcohol without withdrawal .
Mrs. Larson's story (as she tells it in her book) is congruent with that description of her approach. Her own son killed himself in her home after attending a 6 week drug treatment program. Since then she has studied alcohol treatment, and has researched valuable approaches toward treating alcohol-dependency. Mrs. Larson writes with integrity. Mrs. Larson describes her story in her book.
I believe the book is a good information source and is trustworthy in it's claims. I'm also a believer in supplements from their effects on me, so you could say I'm biased toward Joan Larsen's treatment program.
I have been taking supplements for a long time. I know from my own research that supplement efficiacy depends on a number of factors, from supplement raw material production by their chemical company to supplement preparation by their manufacturer to supplement packaging by their wholesaler to supplement shipment by their transport company, and finally to supplement shelf storage by a supplement resellers. Then there's the issue of how supplements are used by their consumers, in what amounts, at what times of day, with what contents of what meals, and with what other supplements or medications.
"Seven Weeks To Sobriety" does sell a supplement line distributed through Mrs. Larson's company. Mrs. Larsen uses the supplements she sells by mail order at her facility in Minnesota, and that means to me that her mail-order supplements are definitely high-quality.
I recommend the book if you want to read through it to find out how supplements can help you lose your biochemical addiction to alcohol. Out-patient treatment at her clinic is covered by private insurance (I checked), so maybe the cost of her supplement program is as well, or maybe it will be in the future. If so, then what her book suggests is a treatment for alcoholism that alcohol-dependent people can easily afford.
Some severe alcohol problems apparently require time at her clinic to effectively solve, but others can be helped with just the right supplement program. No one should believe that a solution will work in all cases, but hers will if any will!
The debate concerning the role of nutrition and alcohol rages on. Based on a considerable amount of reading, I believe that alcoholism is much more than a simple question of changing diet and taking supplements, although proper nutrition plays an important role in reducing cravings for alcohol. Clearly the nutrition-only approach works for some people, however. Larson's book provides a program of amino acid and vitamin supplements which she claims has a success rate of 74%. If you examine the claim more closely you find it is based on only 100 sample cases from her clinic, and worse yet, buried not-so-subtly in the text is a "buy my mega-package of pills" pitch that turned me off completely. The daily recipe includes Tryptophan, a questionable supplement at best. Extensive reading and my own experience has lead me to believe that the most essential "non-vitamin" elements in this program are Glutamine and Melatonin. Larson fails to prioritize the importance to each supplement to the overall program, thus giving the impression that each of the 11 elements are equally important. The ad-hoc nature of her recipe, and the fact that it is neither age nor body-weight specific, detracts from the book. If her program were "74% successful", AA would be finished, the various treatment centers would switch to this approach and most alcohol abuse would go away.
Given all that, the bottom line is: If you have problems with alcohol, buy this book. It won't hurt, and for you it may be the critical factor in reducing or eliminating alcohol from your life.