A Sylvan Lake woman is seeing success on the charts with her memoir, just a week after being published.

Jodee Prouse’s, The Sun is Gone details the journey of her brother Brett Tisdale, and the years of alcoholism that ended with his suicide. The book is now available to the public on Amazon and Chapters-Indigo.

“No one thinks it’s going to happen them, and certainly not to someone they love. When it does happen it makes you stop and think. I don’t give you the answers I just talk about the full story starting when were children up until adult . Its a span of a whole lifetime.”

Prouse, who used to own Happy Hippo Bath Co., says she is starting to shift her focus to writing and promoting the book and the discussion around alcoholism, full time.

“Right now this month in the states, its alcoholic awareness month so I’m sending information and emails out to all sorts of media from newspapers to television. To anyone that would be interested because it affects everyone. It’s something that almost everyone can relate to.”

Prouse hopes her sharing her and her brother’s story will encourage others to open up the dialogue about alcoholism and the struggles of the disease.

“My biggest message is you aren’t hiding these things, you think you are but you’re allowing kids to interpret things instead of being honest. We need to start having conversations in our own families,” she says. “Most books are written by the addict with a happy ending I very much wanted to have my voice which is the perspective of the family and my brother’s voice which is the one struggling with alcoholism.”

The Sun is Gone is available for purchase on Amazon.ca, chapters.indigo.ca and jodeeprouse.com.

christi.albers-manicke@bprda.wpengine.com