The Glass Castle is a compelling and thought-provoking read that offers a raw and unfiltered portrayal of the impact of alcoholism on a family, making it a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of this issue. Quit Like a Woman takes a groundbreaking look at America’s obsession with alcohol. It explores how society’s perception and targeted marketing campaigns keeps groups of people down while simultaneously putting money into “Big Alcohol’s” pockets. Whitaker’s book offers a road map of non-traditional options for recovery.
Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family by Mitchell S. Jackson
In it, he confronts the fuzzy parameters of truth as it pertains to memoir by acknowledging his supreme unreliability as a narrator and reporting his own story out by interviewing over 60 people who dealt with him during his darkest days. While the book does end with a fairly typical recovery arc, Night of the Gun is unusual in how directly it deals with the idea of truth coming from one person. Carr’s investigation into his past self also reveals a dark side that is shocking even by the grisly standards of addiction memoirs; he beat women. The Recovering, when it operates as a memoir, is equally lucent; the reader is ferried into the perils of addiction by a nimble, stylish narrator.
Sober Athletes: 4 Legends Who Battled Addiction
When she marries and becomes a mother, she finds that with so much to lose, she still cannot control her drive to drink. A car accident, the slow and painful unraveling of her marriage, a stay in a mental hospital and an eventual spiritual awakening finally free Karr from the substance that nearly took her life. In this tale, author Catherine Gray describes the surprising joys you can experience when you ditch drinking. She covers why alcohol is so detrimental to a person’s well-being, and how your life and health can blossom without it. This book offers a collection of elegant, complex, and sophisticated recipes that prove there’s so much more to zero proof beverages than overly sweet ‘mocktails’. Bainbridge combines unique ingredients with detailed preparation heroin addiction to create thoughtful and flavorful non-alcoholic beverages.
Healing Neen: One Woman’s Path to Salvation from Trauma and Addiction by Tonier Cain
Meanwhile the reader is tacitly licensed to enjoy all this mayhem and calamity with a degree of voyeuristic relish and, equally, to take a vicarious pleasure in the author’s recklessness and transgression. The various accidental similarities between these books began, before long, to harden into a blueprint, which countless books have faithfully reproduced. Most are forgettable and forgotten, but some accomplished authors—like Caroline Knapp and Sarah Hepola—have created very good books by bringing real skill to the best books on alcoholism standard formula. Lit Up by David Denby is a captivating exploration of the impact of literature on the lives of high school students.
Meanwhile solidarity and communion are often touchstones among recovering addicts. I think a trace of that worldview finds expression—again, in the best addiction memoirs—in the form’s tendency to value the authentically commonplace over sensational performance. When I first read this book over ten years ago it felt like I was reading my own journal (if my journal was written in incredibly eloquent prose).
Addicted: Notes from the Belly of the Beast
The third in a memoir trilogy that includes the critically acclaimed The Liars’ Club and Cherry, Lit introduces Mary Karr as a full grown woman, poet, wife, and mother struggling with alcoholism. In her musical, no-nonsense style, she shows us how this disease, passed down from her own gun-toting, charming, erratic artist mother, almost wrecked her own life, following her on a quest for the stability she didn’t know as a kid. We see how through hard spiritual work, brutal self-effacement, hospitalization, community, and grace, she found a way through. This is also one of the first memoirs I ever read that included habitual disclosures about the haziness of memory, which made me feel safe as a reader and writer. They also expose the insidious ways in which addiction can unfold in the most unlikely places and at the most inopportune times.
Powerful Addiction Memoirs that Sober People Love
For more resources in sobriety, online alcohol treatment programs like Ria Health can help as well. Ria Health is a smartphone-based program that assists people in reaching their unique alcohol-related goals, whether that means cutting back or quitting for good. It’s a witty, straightforward tale of the shenanigans, shame, and confusion that occurs in the morning-afters. Sarah also explores how alcohol affected her relationships with her friends, family, and even her cat. Ria Health offers several FDA-approved medications for alcohol use disorder. When combined with counseling, this approach is proven highly effective.
Powerful Addiction Memoirs to Add to Your Reading List
- “The first day of my second sobriety, I crashed my friend’s car into a concrete wall,” she writes, as if to bang home how wild, mistake-filled, and exciting life without drinking can be.
- Jamison, 34, is the author of a novel (The Gin Closet) and a well-received collection of essays (The Empathy Exams).
- I’d like to think Jerry Stahl’s Permanent Midnight influenced me, too, particularly by encouraging me to try and be harrowing and funny at once.
Luckily, there’s a whole genre of books that prove you are not the only one who has battled addiction. Jerry Stahl was a writer with significant and successful screenwriting credits — Dr. Caligari, Twin Peaks, Moonlighting, and more. But despite that success, Stahl’s heroin habit began to consume him, derailing his career and destroying his health until one final, intense crisis inspired him to get clean.
But what does that mean, exactly, and how do you go about establishing boundaries? Nedra Glover Tawwab combines wisdom, research, and practical tools to help you change your life by building sustainable boundaries that https://www.laptoprepairwolverhampton.co.uk/what-is-hours-per-patient-day-hppd-how-to-optimize/ actually work for you. Reading We are the Luckiest by Laura McKowen can quite possibly save your life. Get therapy and medical care—just $25 with insurance, no hidden fees— for alcohol recovery, depression, everyday illnesses, and more. She is a courageous woman in recovery and someone I enjoy following on social media. Terry achieved long-term sobriety at one time, and she helped many women.
- Whether you’re looking for personal stories of struggle and triumph or seeking guidance on how to support a loved one battling alcoholism, these 20 best books about Alcoholics offer a wealth of insight and inspiration.
- “Sobriety often felt like gripping onto monkey bars with sweaty metallic palms,” she writes, describing how it was to quit drinking again after a relapse.
- 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.
- She eventually realizes a life of forgotten times and missing memories is no life at all, and she sets out to find her identity outside of drinking.
Burroughs talks about being hooked on “Bewitched” as a child, a show that exhibited an alcoholic husband among other things. The Heroin Diaries spares no details in the story of Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue’s bass guitarist) and his fall from grace when heroin addiction took over his life. Building on this, Sheff explores the complexities of addiction, offering an intimate look at the toll it takes on both the addict and their loved ones. Straightforward and to the point, Carr helps you examine the reasons you drink in the first place in The Easy Way to Control Alcohol. For example, he explains why stating alcohol is poison and repeating the tagline “Never Question the Decision” can help you change your unconscious thoughts about alcohol, and shift your mindset. This book is a great place to start if you’ve been feeling sober curious.
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