It involves making healthy choices every day and staying true to one’s commitment to sobriety. This process requires individuals to address not only the physical aspects of addiction but also the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of their lives. Ditlevsen’s failure of nerve, causing her to wrap up three volumes of the most trenchant and unillusioned autobiography ever written with a feeble daydream, is easily explained. She surely felt the reader (and perhaps the author) had endured too much pain in the preceding story to be sent away without solace.
Shazia Omar on The Best Novels on Drug Addiction
I’ll mention some more in relation to the books I’ve chosen, but these are, I think, the four most fundamental ones. Season 19 of the TLC series will shed more light on Robyn and Kody’s relationship issues when it premieres September 15. “I’m so glad I got sober and I was able to be present in life instead of numbing, hiding.”
- His story takes readers through the depths of addiction and the challenges he faced along the way.
- Here is Mark’s life childhood as the son of a struggling writer, as well as the world after Mark was released from a mental hospital.
- Through his introspective narrative, Carr provides a unique perspective on the challenges of addiction and the possibility of redemption [4].
- It wasn’t until I went to group therapy that I really understood the power of finding solidarity and understanding with other members of the mentally ill community.
- Recover from addiction at home with medication, community, and support—from the nonjudmental experts who really care.
- As a wildly famous celebrity, he struggled with more than just alcohol.
The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober: Discovering a Happy, Healthy, Wealthy Alcohol-Free Life by Catherine Gray
Her upbringing was chaotic, with dysfunctional parents — an alcoholic father and a stubborn mother. The family bounced from home to home, state to state, while Jeanette and her siblings ran wild without the reins of concerned guardians. The Glass Castle is simultaneously beautiful and infuriating, and one of the more well-known and most influential memoirs of the last few decades. Former “20/20” anchor Elizabeth Vargas shares her story of anxiety and alcohol use disorder in this compelling memoir.
- Whether you’ve been to treatment, you’re contemplating rehab, or your loved one is struggling with substance misuse, the more tools you have in your arsenal the better.
- I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together shows an artist’s personal journey to self-love and acceptance.
- The day is meant to help reduce addiction-related and drug-related deaths by hoping others who have found sobriety will share their stories.
- He comes from the book publishing world and, again, was someone who was successful and smart, but in active addiction.
- Through therapy, he’s figuring out how to get over the irrational fears that won’t take him anywhere positive.
Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah
George Orwell takes us on a journey through poverty in Paris and London, where he meets all kinds of people in squalor just trying to get by. Down and Out in Paris and London best addiction memoirs is a scathing look at the failures of a society that places all its value in money. The memoir was adapted into film in 1999 and into an Irish stage musical in 2017.
It is the real deal and Cat is a talented writer, but most of all a survivor. Maybe you’ve been leaning on alcohol too much to try to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. 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.
- “High on Arrival” by Mackenzie Phillips is praised for its complete honesty, rawness, and the impact of the author’s recovery journey on inspiring others to seek recovery.
- Her first memoir is an inside look at her famous parents’ marriage and her own tumultuous love affairs (including her on-again, off-again relationship with Paul Simon).
- Through talking to opioid users, family members, dealers, doctors, judges, activists, emergency responders, and law enforcement, we get a much larger picture of the causes and effects.
- Still, his insatiable desire for alcohol and sex upends his entire life on one fateful night.
- Many of these memoirs were turned into movies and became cultural icons.
- This Naked Mind by Annie Grace is one of the most loved sobriety books ever written.
- Offering an easy-to-grasp explanation of the brain and addiction, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts promotes compassionate self-understanding as a pillar of health and healing.
The Italian cardiologist and fellow of the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine proposes five books on Medicinal Marijuana and explains why we should be reading them. For a nonfiction book that sheds light on the prescription drug crisis in the US, and how that came about, look no further than Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, which reads like a thriller. Any general advice posted on our blog, website, or app is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace or substitute for any medical or other advice. If you have specific concerns or a situation arises in which you require medical advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified medical services provider. A darkly comic, honest, and completely relatable inside look at high-functioning addiction in the world of corporate law-a sort of ‘Sex and the Psych Ward.’ It’s inspiring, informative, and impossible to put down.
Johann Hari discusses the war on drugs, arguing that it has completely failed by almost every single metric you care to use. Hari argues that drug addiction is far more environmentally determined than is allowed for and points to Portugal’s successful programs for reintegrating addicts. Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA School of Public Affairs, talks about the pros and cons of prohibition, arguing that prohibition can work, or at least have benefits, provided it’s done well, which it isn’t currently. In the tradition of Blackout and Permanent Midnight, a darkly funny and revealing debut memoir of one woman’s twenty-year battle with sex, drugs, and alcohol addiction, and what happens when she finally emerges on the other side. They call into question the beliefs we’ve been raised with, and stereotypes of addiction.
Recovery Reading List: 17 Best-Selling and/or Award-Winning Books on Addiction and Recovery
His writing has been published in Pitchfork, The Guardian, Wired and Hazlitt. Currently based in Toronto, Pemberton was https://ecosoberhouse.com/ a former poet laureate for Edmonton. McLeod is Nehiyaw (Cree) writer from treaty eight territory in northern Alberta.