What are your next steps after you or a family member makes bad choices, or experiences a personal calamity...such as divorce, addiction, abuse, incarceration, or infidelity? Serious challenges like these often affect an entire family and put you (and yours) under the microscope of an uncaring, over-burdened legal system. Based on a quarter century of helping individuals and families navigate the courts, while making liberal use of mediation, family attorney Neil Presley Cox offers a smorgasbord of common-sense solutions in his new book HOPE LINES...with a bit of Christian perspective thrown in. Rather than a dry, boring discourse on laws and legal maneuvering, Cox sends you these insights in creative form. After synthesizing the most common personal and family "disasters" in and out of the courts, he carefully pens 18 engaging and well-written quasi-fictional stories. Each acts as a template to help you identify with your situation(s). In addition to these often gut-wrenching dramas-which can bring tears when they hit too close to home-every narrative includes a section on reflection (analysis), application (recommendations), plus a Resource Toolbox and a relevant scriptural verse. Also, HOPE LINES offers a handful of "Calls for New Hope and Faith" which are motivationally worth many times the entire price of this resource, by themselves. Avoiding the legal system red flags, and working things out, are a key piece of the message in HOPE LINES. Neil Presley Cox, the "lawyer with a heart" invites you, as well as therapists, counselors, lawyers, addicts, social services, law enforcement, and others involved in this growing legal quagmire get on board with the spirit and message of this landmark resource. Do not give up HOPE! Surviving life and family challenges-whether civil or criminal-is an energy-draining, depression-invoking process. And while the cliché "this too shall pass" is mostly true, it does not help when you are in the middle of it, and your world seems to be falling apart. Cox spent seven years writing and re-writing HOPE LINES to throw out a rope or "line" of hope, as you suffer through and survive what is explicitly found in the subtitle: 18 Stories of Families in Trouble and the Help They Need in Spirt, Sense, and Law. While this resource is much more practical than religious, Cox feels that the erosion of family structure and values is a big part of what led us to the current crisis. Lack of personal responsibility and growing up into a life of dependence, co-dependence, or other failed attempts at independence, are now the status quo. Most people today don't understand or even know that moving past independence, into functional INTER-dependence with our key relationships, needs to be a major life goal. But that is water under the bridge. Our current reality sees individuals and families (and yes, even Christian families) torn apart by drug addiction, alcoholism, infidelity, divorce (with resulting step-families or "grand-parenting"), physical and mental abuse, child custody, an apathetic legal system, job and relationship stress, mental illness, single parenting, and today - even gaming addiction! All are touched upon directly or indirectly, in the 18 stories. HOPE LINES is a seminal approach by a rare attorney doing his part to stem this societal tide of unhappy results, to restore lives that all started with great promise. Cox invites you to enjoy the results of his experiences and perspectives that only someone is his position (family and criminal attorney) can fully explore and explain. And he even shares his own story of beating alcohol addiction induced by his daily exposure to lives in crisis. As you read HOPELINES, please also share your feedback in the "Reviews" section near the bottom of this page. Neil would love to hear from you, and will use your comments to shape future editions of this timely resource.