Best Books on Addiction To Break Down Stigma and Open Your Mind

She’s just someone who uses alcohol to muster up courage, and well, survive life. This is just how it has always been since her introduction to Southern Comfort when she was just fourteen. Get FREE daily coaching messages from Chris Scott to help you quit or cut down on alcohol in just 10 days. Finally, I sought out books that helped me to better understand the human condition, including my own. I picked up this book because I knew that Tony Robbins was a mega-successful self-help guru, which led me to believe that he had to be a con man of sorts. The first 100 pages blew my mind and I found best books on alcohol addiction myself getting excited to read another chapter of this book every night before going to sleep. With intensity and repetition, I’ve also turned certain yoga poses into automatic initiators of a rush of feel-good chemicals. An intervention is not about how to control the substance user; it is about how to let go of believing you can. BrightView offers comprehensive outpatient treatment that can help you reclaim your life. Writes with a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion about his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his fourteen years of recovery.

For as prevalent as drinking is, there is really only one acceptable way to get help – admit you’re an alcoholic and abstain forever. While addiction specialist Michael S. Levy agrees that is very successful for most, in his 35-year career, he’s found that many can successfully moderate with professional help. Alcoholism, like addiction, is about brain science, not personal character. This book explores the scientific backgrounds of potential medications for alcoholism and the gap in alcoholism treatment between complete abstinence and careful moderation. If you are struggling with your drinking, a trained therapist can help you find treatment. If you’re living with an alcoholic, you may also benefit from the support of a therapist or couples counselor. Throughout the course of the narrative, David realizes that her party lifestyle is not conducive to a healthy life, which is a realization that many addicts do come to. The challenge is overcoming the addiction, and moving past the substance dependency. “Party Girl” resolves with David coming to such a realization, and for that reason her story can be very relatable for people who are battling addiction.

Ballad of a Sober Man: An ER Doctor’s Journey of Recovery by J.D. Remy

Secondly, it is not about whether you know it happened or what you think happened; it is about how the other person feels when anything happens. 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. The trauma can range through a vast range of scenarios, and it’s all in the perception of how the person sees it and how they were affected. Double Double,” mystery writer Martha Grimes and her son, Ken, share their experiences with alcoholism. Two memoirs in one, it offers two very unique journeys and perspectives on living with an addiction.

Regardless of how one finds their way out of addiction, the chances are excellent that some of the successfully applied strategies run parallel in idea, thought, action, and structure to suggestions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Author Caroline Knapp shares her personal memoir and brings to light the fact that more than 15 million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism and 5 million of them are women. Caroline describes how she drank through her years at an Ivy-League college, her award-winning career, while masking herself as a dutiful daughter and professional. Readers looking for sobriety books geared towards women will appreciate Caroline’s best books on alcohol addiction honest account. Addiction can consume your life, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, or a certain behavior. For people with addictions, finding support can mean the difference between success and relapse, or even life and death. For more books about alcoholism and addiction, check out this list of 100 must-read books about addiction. Dual diagnosis program, we address any addiction-related issues in tandem with mental health. This way, each disorder can be analyzed separately as well as together, and an understanding of their relationship can be determined. When I first read this book over ten years ago it felt like I was reading my own journal .

Alcohol Explained

But wherever that journey starts, these memoirs prove that struggle can lead to something beautiful in the end. But, growing up with an alcoholic mother, my most common mode of escape as a child was in fiction. Before I was old enough to simply walk out of the house and literally escape, I hid inside my room and read entire afternoons away, happily lost. New in recovery, a chance encounter with Gray Hawk, a 74-year old Native American, showed her that healing herself would include looking within, taking Steps, and creating a house of healing for other women. It was the beginning of using externals to fix an internal problem. A 74-year old Native American found me at ten months in recovery. He showed me a path to follow, including opening a house of healing for other women. His teachings, spiritual principles, and a lot of work helped me achieve 32 years in recovery. He is the owner of Sunshine Nutraceuticals LLC. Michael is the author of a blog focusing on living a happy, healthy, healing lifestyle.

Author Laura McKowen wrote the 248 page self-help book as a combination of personal stories and methods of recovery through emphasizing mindfulness and all the blessings that come with living a healthy, constructive life. Spanning over 400 pages, “The Big Book” houses memoir styled stories from Bill W, and co-writer Dr. Bob, (the founder of A.A. in Akron, Ohio) called Bill’s Story and Dr. Bob’s Nightmare. These personal experiences detail how the 12-step process came to be, and explain how the reader can find it within themselves to reach a high power over alcohol and maintain permanent celibacy from drinking. A major theme of the book is the belief, of the authors, and thus their theory regarding sobriety, that it is not possible for a person suffering from alcohol dependency to overcome their addiction on their own. This is one reason why Alcoholics Anonymous has always operated as a group, as the sobriety organization follows the methods outlined in, “The Big Book”.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

With incredible wit and skill, Sacha Scobie manages to tell you both what alcohol used to mean for her and how her sober life is going now. She relied on alcohol, so now that this is no longer an option she has to re-evaluate everything in her life, which leads to some great and very witty observations on her newfound life. She had already beat alcohol in the past and there was nothing wrong with celebrating the birth of her child with some champagne, right? This book is a positive tale where she narrates the year in which she went from a cancer diagnosis to her happiest and best self ever. In this journey, she became sober, beat cancer, and finally built a richer life than she could have possibly imagined. It’s a beautifully told story about how alcohol seduced her at fourteen and secretly subjugated her through her university years and most of her award-winning career.

I too was a high-functioning professional with a drinking and cocaine addiction. My addiction always took me to new lows, and cost me many jobs over the years. In college, my friends and I joked that it’s not alcoholism until you graduate. Then I told myself it was because I was a journalist working the night shift. In addition to these services, the Port St. Lucie hospital also offersadultandsenior mental health programs, and apartial hospitalization program.

Can You Read the Books about Alcoholism in PDF Format?

Find a therapist in a directory is a good place to start when choosing a therapist. Most importantly, it illustrates that alcoholism and addiction are not moral failings, but rather scientific differences in our brains. Whether you’re navigating sobriety or moderation, Monument support groups allow you to hear from your peers, share and process thoughts and emotions, self-reflect, and practice accountability. Lucado masterfully examines the cross of Christ and wonderfully draws out just how significant the crucifixion is. This book will leave the reader in tears overwhelmed by the grace of God showing the reader just how much God loves them. Every work by Lewis is a masterpiece.Mere Christianitydeals with the fundamentals and doctrines of the Christian belief. Writing as a former atheist, Lewis writes in a way that anyone can grasp its powerful truth.

• It contains millennia of accumulated Eastern wisdom that has either been forgotten or repackaged as stunted cliches.
• Feeling Good explains how thinking errors can lead to these conditions and gives the reader tools to change their thinking.
• It provides real-life success stories from people who have conquered their addiction.
• Then about how he lost his beloved big brother to brain cancer… and all of the hardships that led to his years-long battle with addiction.
• This book is the most basic guide for NLP that I have found, and the authors describe how using NLP has changed the lives of people they care about.
• The esteemed and late New York Times columnist David Carr turned his journalistic eye on his own life in this memoir, investigating his own past as a cocaine addict and sifting through muddied memories to discover the truth.

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. When we aren’t posting here, we build programs to help people quit drinking. When we aren’t posting here, we build programs to help people quit drinking. After quitting her career in order to dedicate more of her time to her family, Clare Pooley found herself depressed and feeling sluggish with a daily drinking habit to keep her company. What happens when an ambitious young woman is keeping a secret of addiction?

Must-Read Books for Families of Drug Addicts

I’ve recommended it dozens of times to people who’ve asked me where they could find out more about alcoholism, if not for themselves, then for those they love who have a serious drinking problem. In this piece of quit lit, the reader is challenged to quit drinking alcohol for 30 days to re-evaluate their assumptions about alcohol. During the 30-day journey, Grace offers insight into addiction, includes exercises for mindfulness, and discusses how to recognize destructive habits connected to drinking. If you are witnessing a person battling addiction or are in denial about substance abuse, reading books about how to approach addicts is a fantastic place to start helping someone else or even yourself. For instance, Understanding and Helping an Addict , by Dr. Andrew Proulx, provides readers with the questions and answers that are below the surface of addiction. Also, relapse prevention and recovery skills are added so loved ones can help others. Depending on the genre, books can be extremely informational, as well as very relatable. They should never be used alone, though, because alcoholism treatment from a professional is essential for recovery.

He is board-certified in pharmacotherapy as well as psychiatry. Michael has a special interest in addiction disorders as well as dementia. Never Enough is a fascinating book written by an expert who experimented with many substances in her early years. Carr speaks of how cigarettes are not a reward but a negative experience for the smoker. This list would not be complete without a book about America’s opiate crisis. As a health care professional, I see the effects of this crisis daily. The Big Fix is the story of a heroin addict who beat the odds, moved past her addiction, and reclaimed her life.

Children of substance users and many substance users often act this way towards relationships with others. This is why we can’t stress enough that if a family doesn’t want to intervene on the substance user at least intervene as an attempt to help the substance user’s children. Two books that we believe every parent Sober Home of an addict should read in addition to those listed above and below is the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. These two books are suggested reads for addicts and alcoholics. Both do an outstanding job of providing insight into the problems of behavior and perception for the addict and alcoholic.

This book will resonate with those who’ve had a tough time at rock bottom. In his first novel, Burroughs gives a vivid, semi-autobiographical account of heroin addiction in the early 1950s. Prolific, brilliant memoirist Mary Karr shines a light on the dark years she spent descending into alcoholism and drug use as a young writer, wife, and mother. As her marriage dissolved and she struggled to find a reason to stay clean, Karr turned to Catholicism as a light at the end of the tunnel. The key message of this book is that you have the power to transform your thought processes and your life. I used to read this old book every night before bed while I was dealing with post-acute withdrawal syndrome. In addition to the supplements that rebalanced my brain and healed my body, this book gave me some timeless tactics for living in the moment and refusing to let negativity get the best of me.

Díaz’s resilience – and success – in the face of mighty obstacles registers as part luck, part strength, and part audacity. A relationship is, among other things, a shared story – or sometimes, a mutually held delusion. The book serves as a powerful corrective to the fallacy that queer relationships are by nature egalitarian. And the reader roots for Machado fiercely as she finds her way out. In my own healing, I have even questioned the use of the word “recovery” in this context at all, since it implies a retrieval of something lost. Some new habits and practices have had to be built from the ground up. Eventually, she goes through a series of 9-to-5 jobs that end with her living behind a Dumpster due to a descent into crack cocaine use. But in this gripping memoir, she turns it all around with the help of a family of eccentric fellow substance users and friends or strangers who come to her aid. Cupcake survives thanks to a furious wit and an unyielding determination and you’ll want to read her inspiring tale. That siren song eventually led to broadcast journalist Elizabeth Vargas to admit her addiction on national television.

A score between 8 and 18 indicates you are drinking above relatively healthy levels. Learn more about Tempest’s unique approach to alcohol recovery. With incredible wit and skill, Sacha Scoblic manages to tell you both what alcohol used to mean for her and how her sober life is going now. She relied on alcohol, and now that this is no longer an option she has to re-evaluate everything in her life, which leads to some witty observations on her newfound life. Baker is a former NBA all-star whose career was derailed by his substance use disorder. In his story, he convinces himself that he is a better player under the influence, but eventually lost everything to his SUD. Jowita Bydlowska could not have expected things to go this way.

He lost trust of people around him and in his field, but through sobriety he has been able to regain that trust and help many people along the way. I very much related to her always feeling “less than” in normal life, and only becoming confident and alive once she poured alcohol down her throat. A Drinking Life” was written 20 years after Hamill took his last drink, and in it he shares how drinking in his early years affected his life trajectory. After becoming sober, they wanted to see how much vibrancy they could put back into their daily living. The Sober Lush is for those looking to find joy again in a decadent life after sobriety or for hope of a fulfilling life after recovery. This thoughtful book explores the science behind why we drink, how it’s so ingrained into our society, and what new possibilities we uncover when we dare to find joy in the unexpected.