Books About Addiction

2000’s Cherry picked up the story by showing Karr as an adolescent, already dabbling with drugs and profoundly lacking any sense of belonging. The second major problem for anyone writing an addiction memoir—and it’s often connected to the first—is how to conclude it. Only in rare cases—as when the subject of a biography dies—is the answer simple.

Science Daily: Mind & Brain

As a mother, I relate to her story so deeply—our children were the same young age when we stopped drinking. She’s an iconic, witty literary voice, an engrossing storyteller, and this book too is a great study in memoir. Pooley walks us through a year of her life spent battling alcohol addiction and a recent breast cancer diagnosis, two battles — spoiler alert! Alongside this deeply personal story, she includes scientific research and a wealth of advice, including how to recognize if you have alcohol use disorder (AUD) and how to navigate the social pressures that come with a life of sobriety. Although previous literary history had portrayed a number of addicts, only a very small number could be found outside fiction—although some well known examples were only fictional in a nominal sense.

• Based on Fisher’s hugely successful one-woman show, Wishful Drinking is the story of growing up in Hollywood royalty, battling addiction, and dealing with manic depression.
• You are not alone, you are not broken, and there is help.
• Jamison writes about her recovery as well as she does about her addiction.
• 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.

Woman of Substances: A Journey Into Drugs, Alcohol and Treatment

• They offer practical guides on why we drink — and how we stop.
• Koren Zalickas began drinking at a young age — 14 years old.

Or feeling that their lives are somehow unsuited to the form. These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. On the run from her abusive husband, Kyra Smith hits the road. With a dog she rescued in tow, she lands in the peaceful California mountain town of Gold Creek and is immediately befriended by an openhearted group of women who call themselves the Tattooed Ladies. It’s 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania.

Books by Matt Rowland Hill

Shortly after accepting she had a problem with alcohol, she thought a lot about how some people are lucky enough to be able to drink normally without it controlling their life. Koren Zalickas began drinking at a young age — 14 years old. From her first taste and throughout her young adult life, her increasing dependence on alcohol would lead to hospital trips, blackouts, and dangerous and destructive tendencies that eventually helped her see she should quit drinking for good. Well, of course I tried my best to steal from them whatever I could. I very consciously looked to Karr for inspiration in how to write candidly yet lovingly about an imperfect family.

Stumbling Home: Life Before and After That Last Drink

She also writes at length about social and emotional repercussions of losing memory. “When men are in a blackout, they do things to the world. When women are in a blackout, things are done to them,” one expert tells her. The late New York Times media critic David Carr wrote another notable “addiction memoir that’s not a normal addiction memoir” with 2008’s Night of the Gun, in which he investigated his own descent into cocaine addiction.

• I did many things I am deeply ashamed of, and reading her book taught me that I am not alone.
• Marrying personal stories with statistics and research, her candid memoir exposes the secrecy, myths and destruction related to alcoholism, as well as her eventual triumph over the disease that controlled her life for more than two decades.
• All that childhood trauma needed more than AA and talk therapy to heal.
• It is the heartbreaking and astute account of Sheff’s experience of his son, Nic’s, addiction and eventual recovery.
• Carol Weis unveils her two lives in a series of alternating chapters that reveal her transformation.
• Maybe these stories can help another young woman out there.

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads. From Sober Sexpert Tawny Lara comes a cheeky, lighthearted, judgement-free handbook. Dry Humping is filled with alcohol-free date ideas, scripts for awkward conversations, tips from experts, prompts, people’s perspectives, and more. While not a replacement for professional therapy and treatment, The Addiction Recovery Workbook can help equip you with coping techniques and actionable strategies to succeed in recovery, despite triggers, stressors, and daily challenges. Self-help books are yet another device that can support your efforts.

If you’re looking best memoirs about addiction to break free of the social pressure of cocktails and bar hopping, this is the book for you. 2009’s Lit is the volume that deals with Karr’s alcoholism and desperate search for recovery. It can be read alone, but why would you want to miss out on reading all three in order?

His teachings, spiritual principles, and a lot of work helped me achieve 32 years in recovery. The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for, or to be relied upon as, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a physician or qualified health provider with questions regarding a medical condition.