And yet, the psychological terror of the book is informed by the dual psychosis of its main characters, one of whom is a young man, an alcoholic who seems intent on destroying his organs as quickly as possible. Bruno’s complete lack of contact with reality makes his alcoholism seemingly beside the point, but as the story progresses, I find my sympathies shifting as Bruno becomes more and more helplessly imprisoned by his disease. Highsmith manages to humanely portray a murdering, rich, hapless drunk so that near the end, one inevitably feels more complicated and ravaged by both Highsmith and Bruno’s trickery. Reading books about alcoholism is possible, and is as simple as downloading the PDF to a digital device that is readily accessible. This can be a convenient alternative to a hard copy, although many people do find that reading a physical copy of a book creates a stronger connection than through a screen. Veronica Valli, an addiction therapist and recovered alcoholic, wrote “Why You Drink and How to Stop” as a clear, insightful, and informational self-help book that is meant to do exactly what the title outlines. At a concise 162 pages, and published in 2013, the book is considered short, but informative, and incredibly useful. This short book of interlinked short stories gets my vote as the most terrifying, gorgeous, and perfect portrayal of addiction in literary history. Johnson, himself a former heroin addict, rips the skin off his narrator’s life to reveal the beauty and anguish underneath. After several readings I’m still at a loss to pin down how Johnson succeeds in being so transcendently gritty, so brutally compassionate.
Congratulations @maiasz! Your book ‘Unbroken Brain’ made it to the list of best Alcohol Addiction books of all time! https://t.co/tNXePSm9uM
— BookAuthority (@bookauthority) August 10, 2020
It has been recommended by doctors who are seeking to help their patients break their addictive drinking habit, and for that reason, should be seen less as a memoir and more like a self-help book. Subtitled “The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs,” Hari’s blazing work is the best analysis of the politics and sociology of addiction there is. It exposes the ruinous way drug prohibition policies have led to epidemics of addiction in western countries—and is a clarion call for a new approach that treats addiction not as a crime but as a medical problem. But the real beauty of Sober House the book is in Hari’s irresistible storytelling, in which he relates the personal stories of the people he encounters during his research with novelistic verve. These three books by the great Danish author, published not long before she committed suicide, are the greatest autobiographical work on drugs ever written. The first two books in the trilogy portray her unhappy childhood and adolescence, and the final installment, Dependency, shows her near-fatal addiction to an opiate medication called Demetrol. Mainstream recovery culture has become insular, circular, and stale.
Recovery at Our Massachusetts Addiction Treatment
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. “Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.” Tozer is another author who has changed the course of my life and relationship with God. One of the most gifted and poetic writers of all time,Pursuitdraws the reader into an even more intimate relationship with God than ever before. Tozer has many classics that every Christian should pick up on a daily basis. It would be really easy to simply gloss over the pivotal, seeping role of alcoholism in this book, being as it is, a truly gripping murder story.
This includes 17 million people who live with alcohol use disorder. For these millions of people and the many more who love them, the throes of addiction and everything it brings with it are very real. 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. Before we dive into sobriety books, let’s address how alcohol use disorder relates to mental health in the first place. There are many resources available to help you reach your goal to stop drinking. Among them, literature supporting recovery from alcohol abuse, often referred to as “quit lit,” is a popular choice for informative support within the recovery community. This book isn’t about alcoholism exactly, but it’s an in-depth dive into how our parents, grandparents, and other influential figures in our lives affect our trauma. Some things are inherited, including the baggage that may come from a parent or guardian. An alcoholic family member can have a significant and lasting impact on you.
Letting Go of the Thief: A Ninety Day Journey Inside the Thoughts of an Alcoholic by Pamela D. Pesta
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 honest account. For more books about alcoholism and addiction, check out this list of 100 must-read books about addiction. While not an addiction-specific book, The Power of the Habit by Charles Duhigg can still be considered one of the best quit drinking books because of its analysis of how habits are responsible for behavior. In this book, Duhigg describes the “cue, routine, reward” loop that drives habitual actions that can lead to behavioral addiction. Duhigg explains that once these habits are recognized and replaced, new routines can form.
After I accepted Jesus in my life, I turned myself in to the authorities to start a yearlong prison sentence. I was never raised in a church and was in my early stages of being a Christian and had many questions that I wanted answered. One day I was in the prison library and saw this book sitting on the ledge. Alyssa who is the National Director of Digital Marketing, joined the Banyan team in 2016, bringing her five-plus years of experience. She has produced a multitude of integrated campaigns and events in the behavioral health and addictions field. Through strategic marketing campaign concepts, Alyssa has established Banyan as an industry leader and a national household name.
“The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober” by Catherine Gray
And while memoirs centered around alcohol addiction are prevalent on this list, there are plenty of others to choose from, too. Admittedly, there are a lot of lists there about the best recovery memoirs, which is why ours is a little different. “Why You Drink and How to Stop” seeks to help individuals decipher how drinking became a toxic habit and then, swiftly, what methods can be employed to take control over the drinking habit and be rid of it. Getting off the rollercoaster of alcoholism can seem like a lonely battle, but with a book like “Why You Drink and How to Stop,” Valli’s knowledge as a counselor is right at one’s fingertips, which is incredibly valuable. Matt Rowland Hill’s exquisite and unflinching debut memoir, Original Sins, recounts his harrowing spiral into drug addiction. In visceral detail, he recounts his descent into intravenous heroin use and the damage it wrought until he found his way to a shaky recovery after 40 days in a London psychiatric ward. Combined with his stunning prose, Hill’s clever use of biblical metaphors—which trace his “Genesis,” “Rapture,” and “Noble Truths”—makes his story of salvation all the more affecting.
Dr. Hart takes many preconceived notions about drugs and the U.S drug war and turns them on their head, analyzing them through scientific and then social lenses. Dr Gabor Maté advocates for compassion towards people struggling with addiction, as sick people trying to get well the best way they know how. The simplicity of this idea makes so much sense and is often forgotten in everything from AA to drug law. You don’t need to agree with all of Gabor Maté’s theories to see that he has brought a level of hope and humanity to the conversation surrounding addiction.
Here I’m going to share with you the books that helped me remold my mind after nearly a decade of severe alcohol addiction. Most of the books are trying to make a similar point, and that is why it is helpful to read multiple books on boundaries so you can read them from various perspectives. What is profound about Codependent No More by Melody Beattie is her ability to articulate the importance of boundaries while keeping the reader engaged. Her book has personal stories, reflections, quotes, self-tests, and exercises. We encourage the reader to stop looking at alcoholics differently and see the alcoholic as an addict. With that being said, any book on addiction, drugs, or alcohol can be helpful. There was a time when your children were young, and you had no problem saying no. If your 5-year-old reached for a pair of scissors or a lighter, anything other than saying no and stopping them dead in tracks was not an option. Sure, it never feels good to raise your voice or tell your children no, and that feeling was a secondary thought to the initial instinct of stopping them and saying no to protect them.
What are the five stages of behavior change?
The five stages of change are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Precontemplation is the stage at which there is no intention to change behavior in the foreseeable future. Many individuals in this stage are unaware or underaware of their problems.
Michael Matthews has a knack for making complex subjects easy to understand. This book can help you avoid the layers of marketing BS that plague fitness magazines and start a fitness regimen that actually works. If your goal is to become unshakeable in your daily life, this book is a great place to start. It contains millennia of accumulated Eastern wisdom that has either been forgotten or repackaged as stunted cliches. Since mainstream recovery culture best alcohol addiction books preaches an implicit ethic of self-denial, I found that it was important to find fresh sources for resurrecting my own positive sense of self. This is a fantastic read whenever you feel unsure of what to focus on or simply overwhelmed by negativity. These medical practices include Workit Health , PLLC, Workit Health , P.C., Workit Health , LLC, Workit Health , LLC, and any other Workit Health professional entity that is established in the future.
Clare Pooley intertwines personal victories, research, and answers to FAQs about quitting alcohol in her memoir, The Sober Diaries. In a light-hearted manner, Pooley addresses the culture that supports alcohol abuse and describes her journey to sobriety. Readers appreciated her ability to intertwine humor into her accounts of recovery. In Alcohol and You, a professional therapist describes scientifically supported methods of reducing or eliminating alcohol intake. 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. 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. When I first read this book over ten years ago it felt like I was reading my own journal .
- While Frey denies this, and the publishers have released mixed responses, the story is still a deep dive into the mind of an addict and the experience that one might have in rehabilitation.
- Every book listed so far is a good read for a family of alcoholics.
- It can also help you take control of your biochemistry so that you can leave physical cravings in the past.
- They should never be used alone, though, because alcoholism treatment from a professional is essential for recovery.
They offer people solutions to problems and words of encouragement that motivate them to act. Books on addiction are excellent resources to receive information about why the brain forms a physical dependency on drugs and learn skills on how to break away from cravings. 5,387 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books aboutalcoholism,substance abuse, androck music. Published in 2016, “Understanding Alcoholism as a Brain Disease”, by Linda Burlinson, is the second book in a four part series titled, “A Prescription for Alcoholics – Medications for Alcoholism”. For this reason, the book seeks to explain alcoholism and how it affects people through a purely scientific perspective, rather than in the personal way in which a memoir might do the same, and without the spiritual component. “The Big Book,” has sold over 30 million copies to date, making it one of the most purchased books in history. Not only a tool used by members of Alcoholics Anonymous, it has been endorsed by doctors and critics alike as a positive force in the battle against alcohol dependency. “The Big Book” has helped millions of people in their journey towards sobriety, as the stories told by Dr. Bob and Bill W.
Sethe is haunted, literally and figuratively, by the daughter she killed while escaping slavery in this devastating Pulitzer Prize-winning classic. This is a book about the abject horror and howling trauma of slavery, but it’s also about how we metabolise the nightmares of our lives before. A relationship is, among other things, a shared story – or sometimes, a mutually held delusion. In this haunting, sometimes hallucinatory memoir, Machado inventively recounts the tale of her abusive relationship with a volatile aspiring writer, who viciously warns her not to write about the relationship, among other things. 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 those stories, the decision to get better often arrives like a bolt of lightning, but this is rarely the case. My own recovery from codependency and alcoholism, which I write about in my memoir Good Morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls, has felt elusive, circuitous, and sometimes rather boring. 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.
This can range from emotional, sexual, and physical abuse to growing up in a one-parent home, being adopted, or not feeling your parents’ love, attention, or affection. For some reading this, they may think, “That didn’t happen in our house.” Firstly, you don’t know for sure if something happened outside of the house and is a buried secret. 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.
There are many diseases globally, and they all have their suggested solutions. One of the problems we see with addiction is that some of the suggested solutions by way of consequences and accountability is different than almost every other disease. You would not treat other diseases the same way you treat a substance use disorder. One of the many differences is that family and friends of loved ones suffering other diseases do not have to set boundaries, consequences, and accountability for the patient to seek help. People with diseases other than addiction often fight for the cure and the solution. Substance users do the opposite; they manipulate and break people down as they battle to stay sick. Chaney Allen’s book was the first recovery memoir that was published by a Black woman author. Her story tells the story of a minister’s daughter who grew up poor in Alabama, eventually moving to Cincinnati and falling into substance use disorder, all while raising children. There’s a long, beautiful history of writers chronicling their battles with alcoholism and addiction.
The 30-Day Sobriety Solution: How to Cut Back or Quit Drinking in the Privacy of Your Own Home
The 30-Day Sobriety Solution: How to Cut Back or Quit Drinking in the Privacy of Your Own Home. Price:$0 Reviews: 293 Ratings: 4.3 #Best_Alcohol_Addiction_Books
…— Elizabeth (@Elizabe47931771) March 30, 2021