Health
Melody Beattie, Author of a Self-Help Best Seller, Dies at 76
Melody Beattie, whose experiences as a drug addict, a chemical dependency counselor and the wife of an alcoholic informed a best-selling book about codependence that has guided countless people to shed toxic relationships, died on Feb. 27 in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was 76.
Her daughter, Nichole Beattie, said the cause was heart failure. She had been hospitalized from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12, then evacuated from her home in Malibu because of a wildfire and moved into her daughter’s home, where she died.
By popularizing the concept of codependence, Ms. Beattie (pronounced BEE-tee) became a literary star in the self-help world with “Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself” (1986), which has sold more than seven million copies worldwide.
“You could call her the mother of the self-help genre,” said Nicole Dewey, the publishing director of Spiegel & Grau, which has sold more than 400,000 copies of the book since taking over publication in 2022.
Trysh Travis, the author of “The Language of the Heart: A Cultural History of the Recovery Movement From Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey” (2009), said in an interview that “Codependent No More” has succeeded because of Ms. Beattie’s common-sense approach and “vernacular charm.”
She added: “There had been other books and pamphlets published in the recovery space in the early 1980s. Melody made the same arguments, but her voice came across very clearly. It wasn’t clinical — and she had a set of ideas that could be applied to many if not all the problems one was having — and it hit the market at the right time.”
In “Codependent No More,” Ms. Beattie cited various definitions of a codependent person. She also introduced one of her own.
“A codependent person,” she wrote, “is one who has let another person’s behavior affect them and who is obsessed with controlling that other person’s behavior.”
The other person, she wrote, might be a family member, a lover, a client or a best friend. But the focus of codependency “lies in ourselves, in the ways we let other people’s behaviors affect us and in the ways we try to affect them” — by actions that include controlling them, obsessively helping them and caretaking.
Recalling her difficult marriage to her second husband, David Beattie, who was also a substance abuse counselor, Ms. Beattie described an incident when he was in Las Vegas. She telephoned him in his hotel room, and he sounded as if he had been drinking. She implored him not to break his promise to her that he would not get drunk on this trip. He hung up on her.
In desperation, she called the hotel repeatedly into the night, even as she was preparing to host a party for 80 people at their house in Minneapolis the next day.
“I thought if I can just talk to him, I can make him stop drinking,” she told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1988. But at 11 p.m., she stopped calling.
“Something happened inside of me, and I let go of him,” she said. “I thought, ‘If you want to drink, drink. …’ I gave his life back to him, and I started taking my own back.”
She said that was the first step in detaching herself from their mutual codependence. They eventually divorced.
Detachment, she wrote, “is not a cold, hostile withdrawal” or a “Pollyannish, ignorant bliss”; rather, it is releasing “a person or problem in love.”
When should the release happen? she asked. Her list was long. It started: “When we can’t stop thinking, talking about, or worrying about someone or something; when our emotions are churning and boiling; when we feel like we have to do something about someone because we can’t stand it another minute. …”
Melody Lynn Vaillancourt was born on May 26, 1948, in Ramsey, Minn., and grew up mainly in St. Paul. Her father, Jean, a firefighter, was an alcoholic who left the family when Melody was 2. Her mother, Izetta (Lee) Vaillancourt, owned a nursing home after her divorce, but, Ms. Beattie said, beat her four siblings. (She escaped the punishment herself, she said, because she had a heart condition.)
Melody was sexually molested by a stranger when she was 5; began drinking whiskey at 12; and started using amphetamines, barbiturates, LSD and marijuana in high school. By 20, she was shooting heroin. She also robbed pharmacies with a partner and, after being arrested, spent eight months in drug treatment in a state hospital.
After being successfully treated, she held secretarial jobs before being hired as a chemical dependency counselor in Minneapolis, assigned to treat the wives of men in treatment. Her patients were uniformly angry and focused so much on their husbands’ feelings that she found it nearly impossible to get them to express their own.
“Eight years later, I understood those codependents, those crazy codependents — we didn’t call them that, we called them significant others — because I had become one” through her marriage to Mr. Beattie, she told The Star Tribune. “All I could think and talk about was the alcoholic, what he was or wasn’t doing.” She was, she said, “filled with anger and anger because he wouldn’t stop drinking.”
While treating the women, living on welfare and writing freelance articles for a local paper, The Stillwater Gazette, she interviewed experts on codependence, hoping to write a book on the subject.
She received a $500 advance from the publishing division of the Hazelden Foundation substance abuse recovery center, now called the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. The book was published in 1986 and spent 129 weeks on The New York Times’s advice and how-to best-seller list.
Ms. Beattie went on to write several other books, including “The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency” (1990), which has sold more than three million copies.
Writing in Newsweek in 2009, Dr. Drew Pinsky, the addiction medicine specialist and media personality, named “Codependent No More” one of the four best self-help books of all time. Ms. Beattie heavily revised it for a new edition that was published in 2022.
In addition to her daughter, Ms. Beattie is survived by two grandsons; a sister, Michelle Vaillancourt; and a son, John Thurik, from her first marriage, to Steven Thurik, which ended in divorce. John was raised by his father and maternal grandmother.
Her marriages to Scott Mengshol and Dallas Taylor, who played drums with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, also ended in divorce.
Her son Shane Beattie died in a skiing accident in 1991 when he was 12, plunging her into grief. She wrote “The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take” (1995) — a personal book, not a self-help guide — to describe her journey from a broken spirit to recovery.
Her first step was to write two letters, one of which said:
“God, I’m still mad, not pleased at all. But with this letter, I commit unconditionally to life, to being here and being alive as long as I’m here, whether that’s another 10 days or another 30 years. Regardless of any other human being and their presence in my life, and regardless of events that may come to pass. This commitment is between me, life, and you.”
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Gym membership in the U.S. hit a record high in 2025, according to the Health & Fitness Association, giving consumers more workout options — and more choices to sort through when picking the right fitness space.
Amid today’s wellness renaissance, many gyms and fitness clubs can cost hundreds of dollars per month, depending on the level of access and amenities offered.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Kenny Santucci — New York City fitness trainer, gym owner and host of the “Strong New York” podcast — revealed the attributes of a great gym.
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“A lot of people traditionally look at gyms [as if] they have to have all the bells and whistles,” he said. “Spa, bathrooms, all these things. For me, a gym is a gym. I go there for the equipment, I go for the culture, I go for the look and feel of the place.”
He added, “You can have an incredible gym [that’s] a garage gym, and you can have an incredible gym [that] somebody could have built for $10 million.”
Amid today’s wellness renaissance, many gyms and fitness clubs can cost hundreds of dollars per month, depending on the level of access and amenities offered. A New York City fitness trainer (not pictured) has a different view of what makes the best gyms.
Santucci, who visits new gyms across the country and posts his experiences on social media, said he looks for a balance between aesthetics and equipment quality, as well as “great people.”
“I think you could go and get in a sweat or a workout anywhere — but if the people are great, that’s what creates that great culture,” he said.
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“If you ask the average person who goes to most big-box gyms, the things they tell you they love about the gym are, ‘Oh, I love the showers. They have really nice towels.’ It’s nothing that actually pertains to the gym, and I believe that people should go to the gym to progress and get better,” he added.
With these goals in mind, Santucci revealed some of his top-rated gyms in the U.S.
Life Time Fitness
Life Time is a chain of luxury health clubs in the U.S., offering amenities like indoor courts, swimming pools, saunas and group fitness classes.
Santucci applauded the gym’s founder and CEO, Bahram Akradi, for being a “very hands-on owner and operator,” overseeing hundreds of gyms across the country.
The facade of an upscale Lifetime gym is shown in Walnut Creek, California, on April 8, 2025. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
“[Bahran’s] mentality and belief system around the fitness space, I absolutely love,” he said.
“I give a lot of credit to the guys who are owners and operators,” Santucci added. “They’re in the space, they’re making sure things are going really well. I think if you’re going to be in the gym business, you should be one of those people.”
Anatomy Gyms (Florida)
Santucci also shouted out Marc Megna, co-founder and co-CEO of Florida-based Anatomy Fitness for building a must-visit space.
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“It’s an incredible culture there, and I think that’s what they really push at that gym,” he said.
“The way the gym’s set up, the cleanliness of it, the aesthetics – you walk in that place, and you want to train … and those are things you can’t just buy … You have to live it, love it and be involved in the day-to-day operations.”
Powerhouse (New York/New Jersey)
In a newer recommendation, Santucci said he’s enjoyed stopping into Powerhouse Gym in New York City.
The New York- and New Jersey-based gym focuses on weight training and bodybuilding, including a powerlifting room and boxing rig at its locations.
“I just started going there, once or twice a week,” he said. “I really love the people and the culture.”
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The Training Lab (NYC)
For more of a group fitness and Hyrox training experience, Santucci recommends The Training Lab in New York City. (Hyrox is a global fitness racing brand and training system with affiliated gyms and training clubs.)
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“The guys over at Training Lab are incredible,” he told Fox News Digital. “Another owner-operator who’s involved in the business, who partakes in everything. I think they’re another great gym.”
“If you’re looking for group training, Training Lab’s a great space.”
Participants compete in the burpee broad jumps event during the Hyrox fitness race at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Bangkok on March 21, 2026. (Amaury Paul/AFP)
The price of wellness
While some premier gym memberships can cost upward of $300 a month, Santucci said it isn’t necessary to spend a lot to get results, although it may result in more of an “experience.”
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“We need to restructure the way we think about health and wellness,” he said. “People aren’t going out as much anymore. They’re not spending as much on alcohol.
“It’s all what you prioritize. I prioritize fitness,” he went on. “I belong to multiple gyms. I have a membership to TMPL Gym here in [New York City]. I have a membership to Renzo Gracie’s. That’s what I like to do with my money.”
While some premier gym memberships can cost upward of $300 a month, Santucci emphasized that it isn’t necessary to spend a lot to get results. (iStock)
Santucci said what he’s paying for goes beyond the equipment — pointing to the staff, community and overall atmosphere as part of the value.
“If you want that elevated experience, you’re going to pay for that just like you would at a hotel or a restaurant or anything else,” he said.
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The expert suggested that wellness has recently become a “third form of hygiene.”
“It’s like you take a shower, you brush your teeth and you go to the gym,” he said. “I think those are three non-negotiables for almost everybody on a daily basis when it comes to your hygiene.”
Ants can be a nuisance. Just ask officials at a hospital in Canada who are dealing with an “appearance of ants within the operating room” that has forced them to indefinitely suspend some surgeries there.
The ants appeared recently at Carman Memorial Hospital in Carman Manitoba, according to a statement from Southern Health-Santé Sud, the provincial authority that oversees the hospital.
It was not clear when the hospital would resume operations, but Southern Health said on Friday that a “limited number of elective surgeries” had been postponed and that the hospital was working with patients to reschedule them. Portage Online, a local news website, reported that 16 operations had been postponed, citing information from Southern Health.
It’s not the first time ants have disrupted operations at the hospital. The insects appeared there in August 2024, but “the issue resolved within a few weeks,” Southern Health said. They returned last summer. But with their reappearance this week, the hospital said it was taking more drastic measures. The hospital serves the area around Carman, a town with a population of around 3,000 residents about 47 miles southwest of Winnipeg.
“Any factor that could impact the safety or integrity of the operating room environment requires the suspension of surgical activity until the issue can be resolved,” Southern Health said. “The safety of patients, staff and physicians is paramount.”
The hospital is working with exterminators “to identify the source of the ants and implement additional measures and support a long-term resolution.” Southern Health told Portage Online that exterminators had “surveyed and cleaned drains, opened walls and sealed cracks.”
“Several methods have been used to bait the ants in an effort to find where they are originating from,” the authority said.
In a separate statement to the CBC, Southern Health said that it believed that an ant colony had made its home near the hospital and that they appeared to be “simply seeking food sources inside buildings as ants are known to do.”
The hospital also told the CBC that the ant problem at the hospital did not amount to an “infestation.”
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The U.S. government is moving to evacuate American passengers from a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with plans to transport them to a military base in Nebraska for quarantine and monitoring, federal health officials said Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the American public remains extremely low as officials move forward with a medical repatriation flight for passengers aboard the M/V Hondius.
President Donald Trump said earlier Friday that the situation appears to be under control, pointing to the virus being difficult to transmit.
“We have very good people looking at it. It seems to be okay. They know the virus very well. They’ve worked with it for a long time. They know it very well. Not easy to pass on. So we hope that’s true,” he said.
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Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, on May 6, 2026. (Misper Apawu/AP)
“We seem to have things under very good control. They know that virus very well. It’s been around a long time. Not easily transferable, unlike COVID. But we’ll see. We have very good people studying it very closely.”
The outbreak has escalated over several weeks, beginning with a passenger who became sick in early April and later resulting in at least three deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
Cases are now reported across multiple countries after passengers disembarked in Africa and Europe, prompting health officials to trace contacts globally.
Authorities in Cape Verde at one point blocked passengers from leaving the ship, underscoring concerns about containment.
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An ambulance evacuates patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship to the airport in Praia, Cape Verde, on May 6, 2026. (Misper Apawu/AP)
Hantavirus is a rare but potentially deadly disease typically spread through contact with infected rodents or their droppings, according to the CDC. While most strains do not spread between people, health officials say the Andes virus — identified in some cases linked to the cruise ship — is the only known strain capable of limited person-to-person transmission.
The vessel is expected to dock in Spain’s Canary Islands, where international teams are coordinating next steps for passengers and crew.
A CDC team has been deployed to the Canary Islands to assess potential exposure among American passengers and determine monitoring needs.
Returning passengers are expected to be flown on a U.S. government medical repatriation flight to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska.
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, on May 6, 2026. (Misper Apawu/AP)
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They will then be transported to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for further monitoring.
Additional CDC personnel will be stationed at Offutt Air Force Base to support health assessments.
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