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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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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Research continues to uncover new details on how fasting may help extend life.
A new study published in the journal Nature Communications investigated how intermittent fasting can boost longevity in small worms often used in aging research.
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas compared worms that were fed normally to those that underwent a 24-hour fast in early adulthood and were then fed again, according to a press release.
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The scientists measured a variety of factors, including stored fat, gene activity related to fat metabolism and lifespan.
The results showed that the life-boosting benefit did not depend on the fasting itself but on the body’s behavior after eating again.
Experts say sustainability is key when choosing a long-term weight-loss strategy. (iStock)
Study lead Peter Douglas, associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine at UT Southwestern, suggested that these discoveries “shift the focus toward a neglected side of the metabolic coin – the re-feeding phase.”
“Our data suggest that the health-promoting effects of intermittent fasting are not merely a product of the fast itself, but are dependent on how the metabolic machinery recalibrates during the subsequent transition back to a fed state,” he said.
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“Our findings bridge a gap between lipid metabolism and aging research,” he added. “By targeting aging, the single greatest risk factor for human disease, we move beyond treating isolated conditions toward a preventive model of medicine that enhances quality of life for all individuals.”
Lauri Wright, director of nutrition programs at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health, called this a “high-quality” study that adds an “important nuance to how we think about fasting and longevity.”
Intermittent fasting typically involves limiting meals to an eight-hour daily window or fasting every other day. (iStock)
The benefits of the refeeding phase after fasting were “especially interesting,” Wright, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“The researchers showed that longevity was linked to the body’s ability to turn off fat breakdown after fasting, allowing cells to restore energy balance,” she reiterated.
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“From a scientific standpoint, that’s a meaningful shift because it suggests fasting is not just about burning fat, but about metabolic flexibility.”
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Fasting may support longevity through triggering metabolic switching, enhancing cellular repair and stress resistance and improving markers like insulin sensitivity, research shows.
Limitations and cautions
Although this study provides “important insight” on the power of refeeding, Wright noted that the findings should be approached with caution, as the study was done on worms and cannot always be translated to humans.
“Additionally, it explains how a process might work in a controlled lab condition rather than real-world eating behaviors,” she added as a limitation. “Finally, the study is short-term and doesn’t give us the long-term translation on lifespan outcomes.”
The review found intermittent fasting was barely more effective than doing nothing, according to the study authors. (iStock)
Wright cautioned that fasting is “not a magic solution for longevity, and how you eat overall matters more than when you eat.”
“I advise, first and foremost, to focus on diet quality, including a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and minimally processed foods,” she said.
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For those who are considering fasting, it’s better to stick with a moderate plan — like a 12- to 14-hour overnight fast — rather than going to extremes, Wright said. After fasting, she recommends focusing on well-balanced meals.
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Several groups of people should be cautioned against fasting, according to Wright, including those with diabetes who are on insulin or hypoglycemic medications, those who are pregnant or breastfeeding, anyone with a history of eating disorders and older adults at risk of malnutrition.
Anyone considering intermittent fasting should consult with a doctor before starting.
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