11 Powerful Recovery And Sobriety Memoirs To Inspire You

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. 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. Explores the role of family therapy in recovery from mental illness or substance abuse. Explains how family therapy sessions are run and who conducts them, describes a typical session, and provides information on its effectiveness in recovery. A stunning debut novel about a short but intense friendship between two girls that ends in tragedy, Marlena pinpoints both what it feels like to bethe addict and what it’s like to be the friend of one. Though the titular character is the fascinating, sexy, troubled star of the book, it is the narrator, Cat’s relationship with alcohol, beginning in her teenage years and roughly coinciding with her meeting Marlena, that frames the entire narrative.

These include how to recognize an alcohol use disorder and how to shift your mindset about quitting alcohol. Readers appreciated the non-judgmental and empowering nature of advice that addresses many different patterns of drinking. There are many resources available to help you reach your goal to stop drinking.

Sometimes, Being Sober Right Now Is Enough

She further educates the reader with research and a better understanding of the psychology and physiology that drive female addiction with humor and exceptional insight. When Laura McKowen quit drinking, she kicked and screamed. She thought the normal people who could drink casually were lucky.

alcohol memoirs

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. That bottle of merlot was all Kerry Cohen could think about as she got through her day. She did all she had to do but always with this reward on top of her mind. Jowita Bydlowska could not have expected things to go this way. She had already beat alcohol in the past and there was nothing wrong with celebrating the birth of her child with some champagne, right?

Powerful Womens Recovery Memoirs To Inspire Your Own Journey

I plan to read more of this subject, thanks to the fiery, vivid writing of Mr. Jack London. Most of John Barleycorn is not cautionary even though London frames his life story as an argument in favor of prohibition. It’s mainly concerned with London’s wild life traveling all over the world, working super hard at everything he does, just being an all around tough guy ubermensch and drinking on and off all the while, sometimes heavily and sometimes not at all. This was enjoyable enough for being well written and because London’s life was pretty remarkable. In fact I would say his drinking was pretty much what we would expect 109 years later from somebody in his shoes.

alcohol memoirs

Wishful Drinking is a good reminder of the difficulties inherent with co-occurring conditions like depression and substance abuse disorder. Nevertheless, she was a force for good in the mental health community.

Im Black And Im Sober: The Timeless Story Of A Womans Journey Back To Sanity By Chaney Allen

The story reads fast going from dialogue between characters to narratives, as the process of addiction is told through Fisher’s voice. Mary Karr’s memoir, set in Boston , chronicles her path toward sobriety with crackling honesty and wry humor as she effectively connects her family dynamics as a child living in a chaotic home to her adult state of perpetual chaos. 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.

alcohol memoirs

This is a darkly comic book about the slow road through recovery, really growing up, and being someone that gets back up after screwing up. He also addresses his experience of feeling out of place in the music industry as a rapper who also practices a Christian faith, feeling excluded at red carpet events due to discussing his faith in his lyrics. Trained information specialists answer calls, transfer callers to state services or other appropriate intake centers in their states, and connect them with local assistance and support. We may ask for your zip code or other pertinent geographic information in order to track calls being routed to other offices or to accurately identify the local resources appropriate to your needs.

Porter breaks down the chemistry behind alcoholism in an easy to understand format that includes psychological and physiological components to addiction. Ultimately, Alcohol Explained helps you understand your relationship with alcohol consumption and why so many continue to drink despite wishes to quit. In her debut book, Ms. Goik initially presents the dubious image of the “functional alcoholic.” On the surface she has a job, friends, and a privileged background.

Tips To Manage Holiday Stress Without Alcohol

There may be a lot of people like me who do not want aftertastes and turn to wine and beer to be comforted and feel natural, but reasons for drinking vary as riverbeds vary also. After reading Jack London, I feel quite amused, but also self-cautious . Meanwhile, after reading Guy De Maupassant’s “Waiter, a Bok! ” I felt anger in behalf of and pity for all those who drink as to cope with having to witness domestic violence as children.

I recommend this book to those who love adventurers, fans of Jack Kerouac, lovers of the good life & people entangled addiction recovery books with alcohol. Reading Jack London will exercise your vocabulary, as surely as titubating exercises the calves.

About Jack London

Maybe these stories can help another young woman out there. I started reading addiction memoirs in college, well before I admitted to having an alcohol use disorder. I think I subconsciously knew it, but was in total denial. Why else would I have been mesmerized by When a Man Loves a Woman or 28 Days in my early 20s? These movies and books let me know I was not alone, that there were other people walking around who drank like I did. There are countless memoirs about addiction and recovery, but not quite so many about stopping drinking and its aftermath. When author Kristi Coulter stopped drinking, she began to notice the way that women around her were always tanked, and how alcohol affected those around her.

From drinks at baby showers to work events, brunch and book clubs, graduations and funerals, alcohol’s ubiquity is a given and the only time that people get uncomfortable is when someone doesn’t drink. In this powerful book, founder of Tempest and The Temper, Holly Whitaker embarks on a personal journey into her own sobriety and along the way discovers the insidious role that alcohol plays in our society. You may have heard about Hunter Biden before and maybe even know that he published a memoir about his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction. Have you ever read a book that perfectly blended memoir with cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage? That’s what you will get with Leslie Jamison’s The Recovering. The book re-examines the stories that we tell about addiction from the perspective of Jamison’s own struggles, and also includes her ongoing conversation with literary and artistic geniuses such as David Foster Wallace and Billie Holiday. Provides information about alcohol and drug addiction to children whose parents or friends’ parents might have substance abuse problems.

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This honest, hopeful book deals with the pains—and joys—of watching a loved one struggling with addiction and recovery. Her addiction left her lacking in the tools to be an adult; she’s unable to maintain relationships and unclear about sex without an alcohol buzz. Alyssa is Banyan’s Director of Digital Marketing & Technology. After overcoming her own struggles with addiction, she began working in the treatment field in 2012. She graduated from Palm Beach State College in 2016 with additional education in Salesforce University programs.

Hunter Biden’s memoir dives into gritty details of his crack addiction – New York Post

Hunter Biden’s memoir dives into gritty details of his crack addiction.

Posted: Wed, 31 Mar 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Before we jump into the list, however, a word of caution is in order. While none of the following memoirs seek to glorify or excuse drug or alcohol abuse, it is certainly true that all or most of them delve pretty deeply into the darkness experienced by a person with a substance abuse disorder.

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. Maybe none of these things apply to you when it comes Transitional living to alcohol, but there’s something else in your life that’s not a positive force. One day she decides to try anyway and to become the subject of her very own 3-month sobriety experiment, embarking on a self-discovery journey that ends up showing her that a little change is sometimes necessary to get what you truly want in life.

Addicts often face similar problems in addiction recovery, although the details vary. As a drug rehab center in Philadelphia, we know that finding others who have also experienced the challenges of addiction and sobriety can provide a sense of relief, hope, and promotes a sense of community among those in recovery. There are plenty of ways people can share their stories, such as group meetings, therapy, and even online communities. But it’s not always possible to connect with others in recovery. That’s why we’re sharing a list of the best sobriety memoirs. When I first read this book over ten years ago it felt like I was reading my own journal .

  • Have you ever read a book that perfectly blended memoir with cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage?
  • If you think that sort of reminder would be good for you, these memoirs are a place to start.
  • Having just been released from rehab nine months earlier, his relapse cost him his home, money, career and almost his life.
  • Times Best Seller and memoir has been described as “unblinking honesty and poignant, with laugh-out-loud humor.” It’s about giving up the thing you cherish most–but getting yourself back in return.

She ultimately identifies how we all crave love and how that loneliness can shape who we are, addicted and not. Maybe everyone else isn’t quite doing things the right way. But wherever that journey starts, these memoirs prove that struggle can lead to something beautiful and healing in the end.