best addiction memoirs

He viscerally paints the picture of the hope-tainted despair, anguish, and havoc that addiction wreaks on an entire family. So here are 10 best-selling and/or award-winning books on addiction and recovery. Along with educational insights on substance use disorders, the books provide multiple perspectives from those who have successfully traversed the road to recovery. 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. I loved her first two memoirs and was excited when this one came out. I like to think of my own memoir as a thank you to my daughter, who I believe came to help me get sober.

Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change

  • This process requires individuals to address not only the physical aspects of addiction but also the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of their lives.
  • Divorce, abandonment, foreclosure and a mass shooting… Mishka Shubaly had plenty of reasons to wallow in drink and drugs, and he does so with wild abandon in I Swear I’ll Make It Up to You.
  • There was an echo of that in a lot of things, like the idea that police and guns keep us safe.
  • His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, the Telegraph and other outlets.
  • Author Maia Szalavitz shows us, through her own history, how the current disease model of addiction is not accurate.

His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, the Telegraph and other outlets. Early recovery has the quality of vigorous exercise, best alcohol recovery books as though each repetition of a painful moment… serves to build up emotional muscle. Or feeling that their lives are somehow unsuited to the form.

What is my book about?

I love her perspective on drinking as an act of counter-feminism—that in reality it actually dismantles our power, our pride, and our dignity as women, though we intended the opposite. Exploring the thoughts of an addict and a life unraveled by narcotics, this memoir spans the author’s struggles with opioid use disorder, to her time in jail, and ultimately to her recovery. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ High Achiever offers hope and inspiration and a raw and page-turning read. “If you’ve ever wanted to know what an exceptional critical mind looks like on drugs, read White Out. This book is full of enduring insights about time, literature, and memory; it is also a hilarious and scandalous and frightening chronicle of full-blown heroin addiction (and graduate school!).

best addiction memoirs

“God and Starbucks: An NBA Superstar’s Journey Through Addiction and Recovery”

She covers why alcohol is so detrimental to a person’s well-being, and how your life and health can blossom without it. David Carr’s memoir, „The Night of the Gun,“ presents a captivating exploration of his life as a cocaine addict, journalist, and single parent. Carr delves into his past, meticulously investigating his own story to unravel truths about his battle with addiction, recovery, and even his experience with cancer. Through his introspective narrative, Carr provides a unique perspective on the challenges of addiction and the possibility of redemption [4]. A key component of addiction recovery is a commitment to sobriety.

best addiction memoirs

Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed With Alcohol by Holly Whitaker

  • In the spring of 2021, once the vaccine was available and people began returning to normal life, you started going back out to parties in Brooklyn.
  • Ryan Hampton is a former White House staffer and opioid addict who is now a national recovery advocate with ten years clean.
  • SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
  • And as a journalist, you’re taught to fall back on the rules of the profession in those moments.
  • I’ve just come to feel intuitively that they’re the right rules.
  • Although I think they can all be considered addiction memoirs, and share a familial resemblance with other examples of that form, none of them feel remotely imprisoned by its conventions.

I believe in the task of getting that information and doing what it takes to get that information. I really felt it was important to be there and try to describe things as accurately as possible because there was so much distortion and denial. I remember that day the mayor went on “Brian Lehrer,” and they had the “Ask the Mayor” thing and everybody was so mad.

You’ll meet a desperate young woman riddled with anger and fear from childhood trauma, and an equally desperate sober, single mom struggling to push those feelings aside to care for her young daughter. 1author pickedStrung Outas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. 3authors pickedGirl Walks Out of a Baras one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it. 3authors pickedBlackoutas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.

best addiction memoirs

Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as “liquid armor,” a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. A memoir of unblinking honesty and poignant, laugh-out-loud humor, Blackout is the story of a woman stumbling into a new kind of adventure — the sober life she never wanted. Debut novel from Nico Walker who wrote it while incarcerated for bank robbery.

Best Addiction and Sobriety Books

best addiction memoirs