8 Powerful Addiction Memoirs that Sober People Love


best addiction memoirs

Any general advice posted on our blog, website, or app is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace or substitute for any medical or other advice. If you have specific concerns or a situation arises in which you require medical advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified medical services provider. Harris Wittels didn’t fit the stereotype of what a junkie looks like. He was a successful comedian, actor, producer, and writer for Sarah Silverman and on shows like Parks and Recreation and Master of None. Even with all his talent and jobs coming his way, he was not able to get clean and stay clean, eventually dying from an overdose in 2015 at age 29. Everything is Horrible and Wonderful is written by Harris’s sister, Stephanie, about his tragic death and the aftermath of losing her younger brother who was her best friend and also an addict.

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It felt like the scene had become just entertainment for a different group of people. So much of the book is about dramatic change and mourning a period of time that feels definitively over. What I’ve noticed is the young people are under so much pressure to dress a certain way. And everywhere I go, people are making content on the streets and wearing these outfits that look kind of like Instagram fashion tragedies.

best addiction memoirs

The Big Chill: How to Tell People You’re Not Drinking

It was not due to some kind of lineage of influence reaching back to De Quincey, but the inevitable result of applying the simplifying dictates of storytelling and lowest-common-denominator audience needs to roughly similar experiences. The fact that even a great artist like Ditlevsen can capitulate to such dictates, if only once, demonstrates how powerful they are. Emily Witt didn’t set out to write the first great book about what it was like to live through the Trump presidency, the beginning of the pandemic, and the radical moral and political shifts that happened in America between 2016 and 2020.

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  • And the number of people who have never had kids is pretty steady, actually.
  • This book is full of enduring insights about time, literature, and memory; it is also a hilarious and scandalous and frightening chronicle of full-blown heroin addiction (and graduate school!).
  • And even as much as I didn’t give a shit about marriage and stuff, you’re just taught “Oh, you’re going to hit this wall and then the rest of your life is going to kind of suck,” which it turns out could not be further from the truth.
  • Through their stories, readers can find solace, inspiration, and the knowledge that they are not alone on their journey towards recovery.

We are talking about drugs with a lot more nuance than we used to, and there’s a recognition that to fall into addiction is not some moral failing on your part. There’s still a lot to write about and think about that isn’t settled. The opioid crisis revealed the total failure of our intellectual model around drugs because best alcohol recovery books it revealed that if something’s presented to us as medicine, we surrender our authority. And we’re like, Well, the doctor said it’s fine, so a bunch of people were given a really dangerous drug — a really physically addictive, habit-forming drug — and now we have 100,000 people dying a year of fentanyl overdoses.

Most are forgettable and forgotten, but some accomplished authors—like Caroline Knapp and Sarah Hepola—have created very good books by bringing real skill to the standard formula. There’s a little moment, toward the end of the book, where you are sober for a while and get back on Wellbutrin, then go off of it again and start going to parties again. I still go to parties, and I sometimes do drugs, but more than that, they continue to be an intellectual interest.

best addiction memoirs

High Achiever: True Story

By sharing their personal stories, these authors offer inspiration and understanding to those who may be on their own journey toward recovery. The Recovering is a wide-ranging and frequently excellent book about addiction, but it is stymied when https://ecosoberhouse.com/ it attempts to be too zoomed-out. Addiction, with its cyclical copping, its single-minded want, is a monotonous thing. But the experiences of those addicted differ vastly, based on race, class, the substances in question, the time and place.

  • Ann Dowsett Johnston brilliantly weaves her own story of recovery with in-depth research on the alarming rise of risky drinking among women.
  • She begins to share her attempts to sober up anonymously online and ends up finding support, community, and the strength to battle her addiction in the most unlikely of places.
  • In the category of addiction memoirs, this book is not typical.

High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict’s Double Life

From her excessive drinking and smoking to disordered eating and falling for the wrong men, Caroline Knapp is seemingly attracted to anything and everything that isn’t good for her. She drinks to cope with life’s difficulties, like the death of her parents, but it’s only after twenty years of dependency that she sees how the “cure” to her stress and anxiety is the real problem. Three years sober, Jowita Bydlowska celebrates the birth of her first child with a glass of champagne, and just like that, she is spiraling back into the life of drinking she thought she had escaped. Bydlowska depicts life as a new mom while under the influence with honesty and humility, discovering she can overcome the seemingly impossible for her child. Burroughs thought he was managing to keep it all together as a suit-wearing, hard-partying Manhattanite until he landed in rehab at the bequest of his employers.

  • So here are 10 best-selling and/or award-winning books on addiction and recovery.
  • Phillips, a well-known actress, courageously shares her personal story of addiction and the challenges she faced in her quest for sobriety.
  • Joseph Naus beats the odds by overcoming a difficult childhood and becoming a successful civil trial lawyer.
  • A person of extraordinary intellect, Heather King is a lawyer and writer/commentator for NPR — as well as a recovering alcoholic who spent years descending from functional alcoholism to barely functioning at all.
  • Sometimes, a slow realization of enough being enough is all it takes to start your recovery.

Taking Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) with other opioid medicines, benzodiazepines, alcohol, or other central nervous system depressants can cause breathing problems that can lead to coma and death. Other side effects may include headaches, nausea, vomiting, constipation, insomnia, pain, increased sweating, sleepiness, dizziness, coordination problems, physical dependence or abuse, and liver problems. For more information about Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) see Suboxone.com, the full Prescribing Information, and Medication Guide, or talk to your healthcare provider. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of drugs to the FDA.

Impactful Addiction Recovery Books

best addiction memoirs


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