Carrie Fisher, Augusten Burroughs, Leslie Jamison: 15 great recovery memoirs EW com

Tony is the Co-Founder of ACOA and provides insight into a child’s struggles while raised in a dysfunctional home. For any child or adult who has experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, and substance use during childhood, ACOA can be a tremendous resource. Every unhealthy family member has adapted to the maladaptive ways of handling the situation, and it has become their new normal. The control of continuing the status quo is driven by the fear of letting go of the maladaptive coping skills and thoughts that are now part of the unhealthy family system. The family’s true intentions of enabling are for themselves and not the substance user. It is very simple to see what enabling and codependency is doing for a substance user.

The history of alcohol is wild, fraught, and charged with power—I’ll never tire of learning about it. By the time I read Courageous Souls, I had, through a combination of reading and metaphysical experiences, developed a deep belief in the survival and reincarnation of souls. For well over a century, traditional Civil War histories have concluded in 1865, with a bitterly won peace and Union soldiers returning triumphantly home. In a landmark work that challenges sterilized portraits accepted for generations, Civil War historian Brian Matthew Jordan creates an entirely new narrative. Mining previously untapped archives, Jordan uncovers anguished letters and diaries, essays by amputees, and gruesome medical reports, all…

show more. Reveals what happens in an alcoholic home, discusses the scars that the children of alcoholics must bear, and explains how adult children of alcoholics can deal with their parents and their own problems.

The Laundry List: The ACOA Experience

As a historian of alcohol, I sometimes get asked why I study something so niche; this book shows that alcohol history is anything but! As a wine-lover, I found the chapters by Nancy Hanway and Steve Stein tracing the development of the Argentine wine industry from the 1860s to the 1990s especially interesting. I’m a social and cultural historian of North America and Latin America, specializing in the history of alcohol, food, and identity.

We’re on a mission to save one million lives over the next century. We encourage all those struggling with substance use to seek professional help. Pamela D. Pesta’s “Letting Go of the Thief” gives you a snapshot inside the mind of someone descending into full-blown alcoholism. This book can be empowering and instructive whether you or a  loved one struggles with alcohol use disorder (AUD).

Best Addiction and Sobriety Books

An addict can penetrate the mental state of any family member and profoundly affect their ability to make effective decisions. Beautiful Boy is a good book and movie that does an excellent job of bringing the reader or viewer into the life of a substance user and the affected family. Another note to consider is families, friends, and some members of society often feel the substance user is a hopeless victim when they believe the disease model of addiction. Whether or not it is a disease, enabling, codependency, and playing out counterproductive family roles do not correct it. Some children grow up in horrible situations and become very successful with no addiction issues. Some children grow up with a void or a hole because dad was never there, or if he was, he never gave them attention or said he was proud of them.

So much has changed and yet the human condition–with all its challenges, disappointments, and dreams–hasn’t changed. Rorabaugh argues convincingly that alcohol of several types—but mostly rum and whisky—were part and parcel of, and at times even drove, early national American culture. Solo and group binges increased from 1790 to 1820 as the population tried to adapt to anxious and uncertain changes in their lives. So, encountering the ten personal stories contained within the book did not introduce me to anything new. What it did, however, was dive deeper into questions that have plagued philosophers and theologians.

Why should I read it?

The misconceptions of others hold us back when working toward a future of becoming free from alcohol’s grip. If your life appears to be royally f–ked from your drinking, it probably is. But the good news is that Maree MacLean’s book is a call to action, not a death sentence. The No Bullshit Guide to Getting Sober challenges us to get more honest than we’ve ever been before about how and why we are f–king up our own lives. Al-Anon’s basic book discusses the mutual-help program of recovery, including personal stories.

• As you embark on a sobriety or moderation journey, building a toolkit to keep you motivated and inspired can help you reach your goals.
• 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.
• Her quest for sobriety includes rehabs and therapy — necessary steps to begin a journey into realizing and accepting an imperfect self within an imperfect life.
• For any mother or person who has felt like an outsider in your own life, you might just relate.
• Ever sworn off alcohol for January and found yourself drinking by the 7th?

Trauma, mental health issues, and genetic predisposition are all root causes of addiction. However, it is critical to remember that there is no single cause of addiction. Nobody can foresee who will get addicted after abusing substances and who will not. Peer pressure, physical and sexual abuse, early drug exposure, stress, and parental supervision can all have a significant impact on a person’s chance of drug use and addiction. Addiction risk is influenced by genetic and environmental variables as well as important developmental phases in a person’s life. The Big Fix is the true story of a heroin addict who overcame her addiction and returned to her life.

If reading a book isn’t your style, or you prefer something for your commute, check out this blog post on the five best addiction recovery podcasts. However, when it comes to chemical addictions, some of the most frequent types of addiction are alcohol addiction. Each chapter of the book addresses one argument for drinking alcohol. That logic is then demolished by common sense and medical data.

• The marketing strategies employed to sell booze to women are as alarming as the skyrocketing number of women who qualify as having alcohol use disorders.
• This volume doesn’t just speak to people living with anxiety and addiction.
• I read this book as an adult and remember thinking that I wish I had something similar to read when I was younger.
• As a reader, when it comes to mysteries I’m always on the lookout for the out of this world.

In those stories, the decision to get better often arrives like a bolt of lightning, but this is rarely the case. My own recovery from codependency and alcoholism, which I write about in my memoir Good Morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls, has felt elusive, circuitous, and sometimes rather boring. Since I don’t love the word “journey”, I prefer to think of it as a kind of endurance art, the term performance artists give to work that requires long periods of hardship, solitude or pain. For more books about alcoholism and addiction, check out this list of 100 must-read books about addiction. When 15-year-old Cat moves to a new town in rural Michigan, she’s ecstatic to find a friend in Marlena, a beautiful, pill-popping neighbor.

Powerful Songs for Your Recovery Playlist

There’s a long, beautiful history of writers chronicling their battles with alcoholism and addiction. Many celebrated authors have walked the long, painful road to recovery, spinning their experiences into powerful reads. Ahead, see the 15 stories of struggle, failure, recovery, and grace that move us the most. As two memoirs in one, this book offers two very unique journeys and insights into living with severe alcohol use disorder. Both Grimes and her son spent time in 12-step programs and outpatient facilities, but they have their own perspectives on what makes recovery work.

• She is a Christian, as am I, and I frequently struggled in my mind between being a Christian and an alcoholic.
• Especially not when you’re a crucial part of the cultural phenomenon called Star Wars.
• Whether your goal is to improve your financial situation or not, this book can help you discover the life that you actually want to live.
• Most people found these books easy to read and understand, according to their reviews.
• Díaz writes of her childhood in a public housing project in Puerto Rico and, later, Miami Beach, and an adolescence marked by “juvenile delinquency” and marred by violence, addiction, mental illness, and abuse.
• Transcending addiction is a worthy goal because, as Tony Robbins says, you feel what you focus on.
• This book explores the next fifteen years of her life, including the various lies that she told herself, and others, about her drug use.

“Chasing the High” informs readers that to be an entrepreneur is to be a successful risk-taker. Unfortunately, this type of behavior can easily manifest in other more harmful ways. Author Michael Dash, entrepreneur and recovering drug addict, draws many parallels between his life pursuing business success and his obsession best memoirs about addiction with gambling, which caused him to bottom out. He explains how he was always trying to be the life of the party, both in the casino and at home. If, like so many others, you’ve lost sight of your own life in the drama of catering to someone else’s, you might be codependent–and you might be reading this book.

The tragic story extended into real life as the author committed suicide a few weeks after signing the film rights. 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). I almost wanted to snap it shut, but instead finished https://ecosoberhouse.com/ it in one day and have read it at least three more times since. Knapp so perfectly describes the emotional landscape of addiction, and as a literary study it’s as perfect a memoir as I’ve ever read. I often think about what it took to publish this when she did, in the 90’s, as a female and a journalist in Boston.