15 Lifechanging Books on Addiction and Recovery

best memoirs about alcoholism

With our team and your desire to heal, we can improve your quality of life and functional abilities, so you can get back to living your best life. In addition to authoring two books (her second comes out March 2023), McKowen hosts the Tell Me Something True podcast. If this book resonates best alcoholic memoirs 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. Carly Tagen-Dye is the Books editorial assistant at PEOPLE, where she writes for both print and digital platforms.

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Anthony Fauci can’t pinpoint the most meaningful dinner he’s ever had — every time you mention one, there’s another memory of another supper with another legend waiting in the wings. Was it the private, casual get-together with former President George W. Bush? Or the time he got to eat with his boyhood baseball hero, Yogi Berra? Or even the time he was with singer and AIDS activist Bono, wishing he could share the secretive news about the latest project he was working on, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. He told the story adding that he met «three kings» who helped him out that night. One was a gas station attendant who offered Tom water and $20.

Economic Effects of Alcohol and Drugs

  • Ann Dowsett Johnston masterfully weaves personal story, interviews, and sociological research together to create a compelling, informative, and even heartbreaking reality about drinking and womanhood.
  • In his follow-up to his first memoir, Tweak, which dealt with his journey into meth addiction, Sheff details his struggle to stay clean.

Gad also announced this year that he will co-write a comic book miniseries entitled The Writer, inspired by Jewish folklore. «My son is still sound asleep in the backseat of my car. I pull myself together to drive home and start making calls,» he added. This post deals with sensitive topics like addiction, sexual harassment, eating disorders, and sexual abuse.

Powerful Memoirs About Mental Illness & Addiction

Subtitled “Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget,” Hepola’s debut memoir is a vulnerable story about refocusing her attention from finding her next drink to learning how to love herself without liquid enhancements. Occasionally reminiscent of Sylvia Plath, Karr’s writing style is simultaneously unsentimental and moving. Over the past several decades, books falling under the umbrella of «addiction memoir» have become omnipresent. Whether you’re well-versed in the subject or totally new to it, here are nine of the smartest and most moving examples. The co-founder and CEO of Whole 30 and bestselling author, Melissa Urban, helped millions of people transform their relationship with food. Now, in The Book of Boundaries, out November 2023, Urban, who has been in recovery for more than 20 years, shows how setting clear limits can help protect your time, energy, health, security, confidence, and freedom.

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She grew up with a tragic journey, running away and becoming exposed to alcohol, drugs, and sex at a young age, and leaning on those vices to get by. A Piece of Cake is her gripping tale of crashing down to the bottom and crawling back to the top. In college, my friends and I joked that it’s not alcoholism until you graduate.

  • Finally, at the behest of his coworkers and boss, he ends up in a rehab that specifically caters to gay and lesbian patients.
  • I am not sure I’d be sober today if it weren’t for Tired of Thinking About Drinking.
  • One valuable point from this book is that not everyone needs to reach a “rock bottom” before quitting alcohol.
  • In the literature world, you can find books about addiction and recovery in a genre known as “quit lit.” Quit lit is full of authors sharing their personal experiences and resources to help others who are where they’ve been.
  • Blackout is her poignant story of alcoholism and those many missing hours that disappeared when she had just enough to drink to wipe out her memory.
  • She started sneaking sips from her parents’ wine glasses as a kid, and went through adolescence drinking more and more.
  • Maybe we’re impatient, selfish, overly focused on measures of success.
  • It made me realize the pain I would have brought to my parents if they had lost me.

It was every bit as gruelling and heartbreaking as the truth required it to be. And I can’t think of a better compliment to a writer of addiction memoir – or, indeed, any writer – than that. Written by a cognitive neuroscientist with former substance use struggles, Marc Lewis emphasizes the habitual reward loop in the brain that can cause https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/top-10-substance-abuse-group-activities/ a substance use disorder to develop. This book also examines the brain’s ability to create new neural pathways and lose the desire to use substances. Lewis provides a description of life in recovery that I relate to myself; that sober life is not a life of deprivation, but one of fulfillment, continued growth, and personal development.

Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska

However, beyond the book that focuses on some key ideas, including changing our beliefs and practicing abstinence, among others, Whitaker aims to change the narrative surrounding alcohol consumption. Employing an integrative, 7-step program for addiction, The Addiction Recovery Skills Workbook helps readers to better understand the roots of their substance misuse issues. A powerful tool when used in conjunction with treatment, the concept pairs motivational techniques, cognitive behavior therapy, and mindfulness strategies.

best memoirs about alcoholism

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best memoirs about alcoholism