More contemporarily, she cites writers and multihyphenates like Joan Didion, Patti Smith, and Cookie Mueller as inspirations. “Beautiful Boy” is a heartbreaking account of a father’s struggle to help his son, Nic, overcome addiction. David Sheff’s portrayal of his son’s battle with methamphetamine addiction is both poignant and powerful.
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Why else would I have been mesmerized by When a Man Loves a Woman or 28 Days in my early 20s? These movies and books let me know I was not alone, that there were other people walking around who drank like I did. In addition to authoring two books (her second comes out March 2023), McKowen hosts Alcoholics Anonymous the Tell Me Something True podcast. If this book resonates with you, be sure to check out Grace’s podcast of the same name, This Naked Mind, where she and guests continue to dissect alcohol’s grasp on our lives and culture. Ahead, see the 15 stories of struggle, failure, recovery, and grace that have moved us the most.
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It’s understandable to feel alone and like no one can relate to your addiction. Luckily, there’s a whole genre of books that prove you are not the only one who has battled addiction. Nina Renata Aron’s relationship with her boyfriend is a passionate fairy tale, right up to the day he relapses.
The Big Fix: Hope After Heroin, Tracey Helton Mitchell
Add to that the danger of addiction, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. For years, Dan Peres juggled a deadline-driven career while in the throes of addiction. Teetering on the brink, Peres realizes he must let go of his frenetic lifestyle to reclaim his life and kick his (at its peak) 60-pill-a-day habit. Alcohol Explained is a spectacularly helpful guide on alcohol and alcoholism. Author William Porter uses the science of the brain and psychology to help you understand the effects of alcohol on your body and mind. He also offers step-by-step instructions for starting recovery and sticking with it.
- Recovery also develops from these same forces and that’s why one-size-fits-all treatment doesn’t work.
- In addition to authoring two books (her second comes out March 2023), McKowen hosts the Tell Me Something True podcast.
- Ultimately, it was just me alone writing and not workshopping it with other people as much.
- However, she was later told by her sibling that she was the one who did the deed.
Read an Exclusive Excerpt From Tommy Dorfman’s New Memoir, Maybe This Will Save Me
Substance abuse can be just as destructive for loved ones as for addicts themselves, as journalist David Sheff’s devastating memoir of his teenage son’s methamphetamine addiction attests. He worries ceaselessly, continuously anticipating another late-night phone call, from Nic, from an emergency room, from the police. From inspirational bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, these tales of addiction and recovery offer advice, encouragement, and tips to help you face the challenges of sober living head-on. “It was really nice to let go of a perception I had of myself that was negative,” the actress says.
The Sober Diaries by Clare Pool
Customers appreciate the book’s coverage of the justice system, with one review specifically highlighting its commentary on the American prison system. Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration. Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more. Explore your book, then jump best memoirs about addiction right back to where you left off with Page Flip. Blackout shows how you can grow into the person you want to be and leave alcohol in the past—no matter where you are now.
- From graduating cum laude from law school despite her excessive drinking to languishing in dive bars, King presents a clear-eyed look at her past and what brought her out of the haze of addiction.
- “Then all of a sudden something will happen and it will come back. It’s a surprise every time it really hits you hard, you think, ‘oh my God, after all these years, it’s still there’.
- They provide a lifeline of hope, coping techniques, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be in recovery.
Maybe you enjoyed a successful Dry January, so you’re questioning alcohol’s role in your life. Maybe you’re a pretty moderate drinker, but you feel like booze just isn’t your friend anymore. Maybe none of these things apply to you when it comes to alcohol, but there’s something else in your life that’s not a positive force. I could not put this book down (literally), talk about gut-wrenching honesty and not holding anything back. When I worked in beauty, Cat was a beauty editor at Lucky and xoJane.com, so I knew of her. I found this book uncomfortable at times and very funny at other times.
Incredible Recovery and Sobriety Memoirs I Want Everyone to Read
- By the time I was done, and now with even more perspective and space, I do actually feel catharsis.
- Books like the “Addiction Recovery Skills Workbook” and “Rewired” introduce actionable strategies and exercises to help individuals craft their own personalized recovery plans.
- Ahead of the release of Maybe This Will Save Me, Them spoke with Dorfman about her relationship with tarot, the other rituals she underwent in the process of writing the book, and how she hopes people receive it.
- Remember, recovery is not just about physical sobriety; it’s about finding yourself, healing your past, and creating a future filled with hope and resilience.
Many addiction memoirs evince a desire to repay the reader for all the dark places the story has taken them with a thumpingly joyous ending. For these reasons, in many addiction memoirs the end is the weakest part. For now I’ll mention one more convention of addiction memoirs, although it differs slightly from the others because it’s more directly concerned with how they’re read than with how they’re written. The pleasures we expect from the form range from the edifying (empathy, inspiration) to the unseemly (voyeurism, vicarious transgression) to mention just a few. But many readers —like the one I was during my time in rehab in 2015—also come to it seeking something often considered antithetical to art.
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In this memoir, equal parts hilarious and lacerating, she documents decades of drug use, overdoses, stints in rehab, relapses, electroconvulsive therapy, broken marriages, and the friend who died beside her in bed. Bringing journalistic rigor to his own life, Carr examines medical records, police reports, and legal documents and films interviews with 60 friends, family members, fellow addicts, and dealers. What he uncovers smashes his romanticized stories of partying and exposes painful truths about his drug-fogged years, but also charts his remarkable recovery.