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Recovery Reading List: 16 Best-Selling and or Award-Winning Books on Addiction and Recovery

We try to get back with all legitimate inquiries in a personal and prompt manner. People interested in the social, medical, and cultural aspects of drinking alcohol should pick up this book. The book approaches “drunkenness” and “intoxication” from a fresh and interdisciplinary perspective.

best alcohol recovery books

Julie Buntin’s Marlena is a stunning look at alcoholism, addiction, and bad decisions, and how they haunt us forever. She started sneaking sips from her parents’ wine glasses as a kid, and went through adolescence drinking more and more. By the time she was an adult in a big city, all she did was drink. Blackout is her poignant story of alcoholism and those many missing hours that disappeared when she had just enough to drink to wipe out her memory. Hepola gets through the darkest parts of her story with self-deprecating humor and a keen eye on what she was burying by drinking.

What is the Role of Detoxification in the Drug Rehab Process?

This is a fantastic read whenever you feel unsure of what to focus on or simply overwhelmed by negativity. With intensity and repetition, I’ve also turned certain yoga poses into automatic initiators of a rush of feel-good chemicals.

With this book she breaks her anonymity, describing the jarring moment of waking into trauma and victimhood, and the onerous emotional and legal battle that followed. This book shows better than any I’ve read the effects of sexual assault and the possibility of forging a new freedom https://ecosoberhouse.com/ in its aftermath. James went to my college, Denison University, and is friends with many of my friends, so I loved reading the parts that took place (“fictionally”) in Granville, Ohio. This is one of the first books I read about addiction ever, before I realized I had a problem.

How To Stop Worrying And Start Living

I really liked this book because it focuses a lot on her spiritual crisis and how it related to her alcoholism. She is a Christian, as am I, and I often battled in my head with being a Christian and being an alcoholic. Eventually my faith brought me to my knees and I began my journey of sobriety after having a spiritual experience. Anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure or genuine passion, is a real problem for people who quit drinking.

best alcohol recovery books

Creating healthy boundaries is one of the most useful practices we can put into place in early sobriety. But what does that mean, exactly, and how do you go about establishing boundaries? Nedra Glover Tawwab combines wisdom, research, and practical tools to help you change your life by building sustainable boundaries that actually work for you. This is an approachable recipe book using everyday healthy ingredients to make delicious alcohol-free drinks for every occasion. Developed by registered dietitians, this book takes a new twist on classic cocktails. You’ll also find options for dessert drinks, frozen drinks, and holiday drinks without relying on sugar for flavor.

What to Do After Drug Rehab

Authored by addiction professionals, Beyond Addiction illustrates how people can use positive reinforcement, behavior strategies, and kindness to help their loved ones achieve sobriety. Pairing insights on treatment options and how to navigate the rehab system, content is designed to not only help someone change but also prompt them to want to change. I chose Atlas of the Heart because it touches on the important theme of second chances.

  • This book will inspire anyone looking for fun and adventure to create incredible memories while living alcohol-free.
  • Also, partners and loved ones may not understand how sexual experience becomes the reason for being and the primary relationship for the addict.
  • This book provides an eye-opening perspective on and insight into how racism and white supremacy can lead to intergenerational trauma.
  • So here are 10 best-selling and/or award-winning books on addiction and recovery.
  • When the cycle of druggy nights and hardcore hangovers starts getting to Laura, their bond must be reevaluated.
  • There are many reasons for why a person might develop an attachment to drinking that leads to physical dependence.

The latest (3rd) edition of “Out of the Shadows” also covers the phenomenon of cybersex addiction, and in the end leads readers towards finding help for sexual compulsion. Richard (Richie) Farrell is the author and voice behind a wonderful and difficult story of heroin addiction and recovery. This memoir tells you the true story of how low a man can get in life and how hard he needs to fight to escape the ugliness of hard drug addiction, desperation, violence and lies. Anne M. Fletcher offers new solutions for drinking problems and communicates suggestions and advice from those who have succeeded. She has gathered hundreds of stories from men and women who have resolved their drinking problems, and writes about the different recovery paths fit for virtually everyone.

Comprehensive Guide to Genetic and Environmental Factors of Bipolar Disorder and Addiction Development

Pamela D. Pesta’s “Letting Go of the Thief” gives you a snapshot inside the mind of someone descending into full-blown alcoholism. This book can be empowering and instructive whether you or a  loved one struggles with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Readers might get a clearer indication of some of the thought processes typically shared by heavy drinkers. You might also gain a stronger insight into why their loved one behaves as they do. 20) A Happier Hour by Rebecca Weller
At 39 years of age – and a health coach, no less – Weller knew better than to drink several bottles of wine each week. Her increasingly dysfunctional relationship with alcohol had to stop, but after decades of social drinking, she was terrified of what that might mean.

best alcohol recovery books

Díaz’s resilience – and success – in the face of mighty obstacles registers as part luck, part strength, and part audacity. The nurture camp depends on an elasticized frame of psychological reference that aims to link addiction to psychic wounds and self-destructive behavior going back to family dysfunction and socioeconomics. (A 1997 Time cover story described dopamine as “the master molecule of addiction.”) And sometimes the travails of addiction are ascribed to an intrinsic vulnerability that is exacerbated by external factors. 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. This was the first book I read on this subject, and I instantly could relate to her feelings.

Fiction Books About Alcoholism

Anxiety, depression, and cravings are not a sustainable way of life, nor are they inevitable symptoms of a permanent disease. Next to running sprints and lifting heavy weights, reading is my favorite way to let go of stress and achieve a renewed sense of possibility. Opening a good book every night before bed was one of my first strategies for finding a replacement activity for drinking. Ann Dowsett Johnston combines in-depth research and her own story of recovery in this important book about the relationship between women and alcohol. Drink brings to light the increase in DUIs, “drunkorexia” (limiting eating to get drunker), and other health problems among young women in the United States.

  • We encourage all those struggling with substance use to seek professional help.
  • She is a Christian, as am I, and I often battled in my head with being a Christian and being an alcoholic.
  • The techniques described in “Recovery and Renewal” can help you through the acute stages of prescription drug withdrawal and make you less anxious while going through the process.
  • But when she returned to it — the day after she told her husband she needed to stop drinking — she read it cover to cover.

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