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Resmaa Menakem shares the latest research on body trauma and neuroscience, as well as provides actionable steps towards healing as a collective. These insights can introduce a whole new dimension of healing while on a sobriety or moderation journey. The acclaimed author of Prozac Nation goes from depression to addiction with this equally devastating personal account. Wurtzel reveals how drugs fueled her post-breakout period, describing with unbearable specificity how her doctor’s prescription of Ritalin, intended to help her function, only brought her down.
- The simple fact that we are not alone in our struggle can be enough to find our way out of the dark.
- Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend (1944) is really its creator, Charles R. Jackson.
- As a mother, I relate to her story so deeply—our children were the same young age when we stopped drinking.
- Calling on his skills as a reporter, Carr used 60 videotaped interviews, legal and medical records and three years of research and reporting to share his journey from crack-house regular to lauded columnist.
- Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as “liquid armor,” a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life.
It was first published in Danish in the 1970s, but has only recently been translated into English by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favela Goldman. Ahead, see the 15 stories of struggle, failure, recovery, and grace that have moved us the most.
“Drinking: A Love Story” by Caroline Knapp
Once his 30 days are up, he has to figure out how to return to his New York City lifestyle sans alcohol. Burroughs’ story is one of triumph and loss, professional success and personal failure, finding your way to sobriety, falling into relapse, and starting all over again. When 15-year-old Cat best alcoholic memoirs moves to a new town in rural Michigan, she’s ecstatic to find a friend in Marlena, a beautiful, pill-popping neighbor. She’s drawn to Marlena’s world and joins her on an adventure of drinking, smoking, and kissing. Marlena’s dark habits worsen, though, and she ends up dead within the year.
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. It is https://ecosoberhouse.com/ well-researched, educational, informative, and at times mind-blowing. She writes with deep emotion even when sharing factual research. This is a must read for anyone passionate about exploring their relationship with alcohol and the role a patriarchal system has played in rising rates of unhealthy substance use in America.
Alcohol Explained by William Porter
By addressing causes rather than symptoms, it is framed as a permanent solution rather than lifetime struggle. It removes the psychological dependence; allowing you to easily drink less (or stop drinking entirely). 10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.Browse their picks for the best books aboutalcoholism,substance abuse,androck music. Drawing on neuroscience, she explains why other self-destructive behaviours – such as eating disorders, compulsive buying and high-risk sex – are interchangeable with problematic substance use. From her childhood in suburban Slough to her chaotic formative years in the London music scene, we follow her journey to Australia, where she experiences firsthand treatment facilities and AA groups,…show more.
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. Occasionally reminiscent of Sylvia Plath, Karr’s writing style is simultaneously unsentimental and moving. Clegg had a thriving life as a literary agent when he walked away from his seemingly-fulfilling world for a two-month crack binge.
Strategies To Take Control When Drinking Is The Main Event
Unvarnished accounts of the havoc and disaster of addiction, whether played for farce or pathos, are as reliably found in the most artistically ambitious addiction memoirs as in the least. 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. One of the first of its kind, Drink opens our eyes to the connection between drinking, trauma and the impossible quest to ‘have it all’ that many women experience. 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. Written with courage and candor this book leaves you ready to push against a society suggesting alcohol is the solution to women’s problems.
- In his follow-up to his first memoir, Tweak, which dealt with his journey into meth addiction, Sheff details his struggle to stay clean.
- Karr arrived with a unique literary voice that combined rich Texan and burst of lyricism.
- 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.
- Drinking felt like freedom, part of her birthright as a strong, enlightened twenty-first-century woman.
Dr. Maté shares the powerful insight that substance use is, in many cases, a survival mechanism. When something awful happens to us, our way to cope is to turn off and even turn against ourselves, as a method of resilience. The book discusses drug policies, substance use treatment, and the root causes of substance use. More than anything, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts provides a voice of kind generosity and understanding to anyone who is looking to learn more for themselves or a loved one.
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One characteristic I think I discern in the best addiction memoir is a certain humility that doesn’t strive after innovation for its own sake. Serious addiction has a way of annihilating your sense of exceptionalism, stripping away your autonomy and character, and reducing you to the sum of your cravings. 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.
The Dry Challenge can be especially helpful for people who drink socially, and are looking to take a structured step back to re-evaluate their habits. This book offers inspiration for alcohol-free drinks and activities, and tangible tips on how to navigate a month (or beyond!) without alcohol. This is one of the most compelling books on recovery and humanity ever written.