Alcoholism Audiobooks in Addiction & Recovery

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. I do not agree with everything in this book; Carr seems to downplay the biochemical aspects of addiction, and he strangely denies the existence of alcohol withdrawal. However, if you’re past acute alcohol withdrawal and you want to obliterate your psychological attachment to alcohol, this book can help you do it. Courtney Todd is the digital marketing coordinator at Workit Health.

• Holly Whitaker, in her own path to recovery, discovered the insidious ways the alcohol industry targets women and the patriarchal methods of recovery.
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• This book will leave the reader in tears overwhelmed by the grace of God showing the reader just how much God loves them.
• She did all she had to do but always with this reward on top of her mind.
• Our society puts a lot of pressure on drinking to celebrate; weddings, holidays, birthdays.
• Even if God is not your thing, putting your spouse and yourself before your child’s addiction is highly recommended.

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. Families often increase the addiction problem and may or may not believe the help they provide will one day pay off. Addiction does not improve by providing the affected person with resources, housing, food, comfort, and other forms of counterproductive support. No substance user enters a rehab Sober House center or considers positive change unless they see and feel the need to do so. To this day, almost every addiction professional concedes to that; not all, and most do. When addicted lives are made easier, the addicted person is less likely to change their life. Another note to consider is, families, friends, and some members of society often feel the substance user is a hopeless victim when they believe the disease model of addiction. Whether or not it is a disease, enabling, codependency, and playing out counterproductive family roles does not correct it.

Novels That Capture the Pain and Chaos of Alcoholism

That bottle of merlot was all Kerry Cohen could think about as she worked through her day. She always completed whatever was on the to-do list but always with this reward on top of her mind. It took her until she was forty to realize this was neither normal nor healthy. You will never be able to forget this powerful story about, well, trying to remember your life and what happened while Carr was addicted to crack and alcohol.

I almost wanted to snap it shut, but instead finished it in one day and have read it at least three more times since. Knapp so perfectly describes the emotional landscape of addiction, and as a literary study it’s as perfect a memoir as I’ve ever read. I often think about what it took to publish this when she did, in the 90’s, as a female and a journalist in Boston. The tension between on the wagon/off the wagon is often good fodder for literature.

Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety by Sacha Z. Scoblic

An intervention is not about how to control the substance user; it is about how to let go of believing you can. As a child, Helaina Hovitz witnessed the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Being so close to this leaves her with a serious case of PTSD throws her into despair and later lands her in the throes of addiction. This is a different memoir because it focuses not on the road to sobriety, but on what happens with your life now that you’ve done the thing that once seemed impossible.

Here are 10 of my favorites, comprising fiction, memoir, psychology, and political writing. Anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure or genuine passion, is a real problem for people who quit drinking. Reinventing yourself as a student of human nature is one of the best ways to rekindle your interest in the world around you. As you can see, I began with books about the biochemical basis of alcoholism.

The 11 Best Addiction and Sobriety Books

Whether you like Alcoholics Anonymous or not, the book has amazing insight. We believe every addict, alcoholic, and family should read it as they will find themselves in the text at some point. These authors have shown incredible bravery and resilience as they share their most painful experiences and deepest vulnerabilities in public. 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. Often, we hear the stories of people with addiction being redeemed by their children — but this is not that kind of story, which is precisely why we love it. It’s about a woman who longs to belong and find comfort in her new life with husband and baby but instead develops a gripping addiction to wine. Author Erica Garza grew up in a strict Mexican household in East Los Angeles.

Alcoholism is dangerous and may become violent or cause financial struggles in a family. Since alcohol is a socially accepted drug, people will tend to settle in denial for an extended period before receiving the proper medical assistance necessary. Alcohol addiction treatment is strongly recommended for those who find themselves experiencing adverse side effects or displaying frequent signs of anger due to alcohol. “My Fair Junkie” is meant to be read as a warning about how addiction and drugs can destroy anyone’s life, even those born in the lap of luxury, but Dresner was able to overcome her demons.

Christian Addiction Recovery Program

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”. We think as we’re getting sober, in spite of the fact that by the time we quit drinking, we’re not typically leading best alcohol addiction books very glamorous lives. The reminder that sober life need not be ascetic or dull is welcome to seasoned veterans of recovery and newcomers alike, but I think the blueprint here for an abundant life of pleasure could be useful for anyone. I remember the first time I heard someone say that their church suggests God first, your spouse second, and your children third. As a parent myself, I remember thinking how foolish that sounded as I would die for my children as most would.

Instead, he began a love affair with the bottle and barely crawled out, but he did, and we cheer him on at each twist and turn in his journey. 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 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. A darkly comic, honest, and completely relatable inside look at high-functioning addiction in the world of corporate law-a sort of ‘Sex and the Psych Ward.’ It’s inspiring, informative, and impossible to put down.

Their stories serve to provide strength and inspiration to others on a path of healing and health. For those asking why we’re seeing so much more compassion for the opioid epidemic than we did during the crack epidemic, Dr. Hart is your man. A neuroscientist who made it out of a bad Miami neighborhood ponders in this memoir why he didn’t end up headed down a different path. Now the first tenured black professor in the sciences at Columbia, he has the opportunity to look back and see why he escaped the social forces so many around him didn’t.

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. Recounting the progression from an idyllic childhood to a monstrous meth addiction, Amy Dresner explores her recovery journey in this insightful memoir. Is a New York Times Best Seller that takes a humorous approach to discuss the complexities of forging a new identity after active addiction. Hepola sheds light on blacking out and how doing that allowed her to bury feelings that she wanted to bury. Now that she is sober, she is working through those feelings and shares her journey in this compelling memoir. Allen is a master at removing the psychological triggers that lead to drinking.

Her passionate writing shines as she tells of her often difficult relationship with money, her relationships, and more. With beautiful prose, Miller’s memoir is about recovering from a lifetime of difficult relationships and a home situation that seems desperate at times. Still, there is redemption at the end of the road as she details a complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, despite the odds. But wherever that journey starts, these memoirs prove that struggle can lead to something beautiful and healing in the end. She believes addiction to be a combination of genetics, development, and one’s environment. She is now a certified addiction specialist possessing a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in public administration. Her focus is on her recovery journey from a street addict to a successful, stable mother of three. This book includes some of Terry’s journal entries outlining her drinking habits and feelings. George’s daughter Terry was found frozen to death in Madison, Wisconsin in December of 1994.

In Blackout, Sarah clearly explains why there’s nothing benign about it and describes what is actually happening to the brain when we reach that point of alcohol-induced amnesia. I love her perspective on drinking as an act of counter-feminism—that in reality it actually dismantles our power, our pride, and our dignity as women, though we intended the opposite. Education is just the first step on our path to improved mental health and emotional wellness. To help our readers take the next step in their journey, Choosing Therapy has partnered with leaders in mental health and wellness. Choosing Therapy may be compensated for referrals by the companies mentioned below. 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.

Phillips’ life started off very unique, with parents who were fully engaged in the counterculture hippie movement of the 1960s, which guided Phillips into a life of drug use, and then abuse, very quickly. Some critics have called out James Frey for fabricating some of the narrative of “A Million Little Pieces” to have it read more like a novel. 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. A wanted criminal, crack-cocaine addict, and alcohol of close to a decade, Frey’s story is incredibly painful, and full of the fury of an individual suffering best alcohol addiction books with addiction. Topping the New York Times best-seller list at one point for several weeks, some literary critics considered Frey’s writing style to be laconic and refreshing, especially given the genre and the realism meant to be portrayed. Published in 2018, “Unwifeable”, written by Mandy Stadtmiller, is a 352 page memoir by a columnist and comedian who wrote for New York magazine amongst many other jobs in journalism and publishing. The book begins with Mandy, just divorced, moving all the way to Manhattan to pursue a career in journalism. As she meets success, she falls into the traps of addiction, and her memoir details her battle with alcohol and other addictions over many years.

Substance users and their families may be the least qualified people to read a self-help book and then go and try and fix a problem themselves. The substance user and their family will most likely read the material through a distorted lens. With that being said, many books are great reads, including Alcoholics Anonymous, which is not a self-help book but rather a textbook of insight and suggestion. None of the suggestions are to correct the problem without help and a solution from someone other than yourself. In this memoir, Vargas recounts the childhood that led to her anxiety and panic and how alcohol gave her a release from her painful reality. Predictably though, addiction eventually became part of her painful reality. Admittedly, there are a lot of lists out there about the best recovery memoirs, but ours is a little different. We were inspired by the diverse experiences of our own community members. Since we care about all kinds of recovery, we wanted to emphasize that drugs and alcohol are not the only ways that women suffer and not everyone recovers through a 12-Step program.