Addiction Memoirs Are a Genre in Recovery The New York Times

We’re privy to some scandals in this field, specifically sexual abuse and harassment and taking advantage of vulnerable people looking for help. A rare condition called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder has puzzled researchers and raised alarms as psychedelics go mainstream. After Kitchen Confidential, food memoirs blew up, with food memoir now a popular subgenre. It also launched Bourdain’s public career, with several more food memoirs and food travel shows on CNN and the Food Network. In Kitchen Confidential, Chef Anthony Bourdain spilled all the dirty secrets he learned in 25 years of working in the culinary trade, chock full of sex, drugs, and drama. Restaurant kitchens are gritty and gross, but they’re where the best chefs get their start.

• But Ditlevsen’s single conventional moment also, I think, underlines her originality.
• Former “20/20” anchor Elizabeth Vargas shares her story of anxiety and alcohol use disorder in this compelling memoir.
• Coulter shares her struggles with alcohol use and also the challenges of getting sober.
• Sebold’s Lucky made headlines last year when the man she accused of the rape at the center of her story was exonerated after 40 years in prison.

Edward’s book list on

This book tells an incredible story of not only recovery, but also how it connects to race and sexual identity. After finishing A Happier Hour, the bar was set high for future reads (no pun intended). Weller has a relatable story for any high-achiever who finds themselves with boozy, foggy evenings that turn into hangovers the next morning. Written with raw vulnerability, the pages of this book are filled with an honest look at her own relationship to alcohol. Reading this book was the beginning of a new perspective for me. It got me thinking the one thing I never wanted to be true… maybe it is the alcohol that’s making me so miserable?

The Best Novels on Drug Addiction, recommended by Shazia Omar

They transformed the killers who had marred their lives forever into characters, with backstories and traumas of their own. In my awe, it was very clear to me that I was still not ready to do any of these things. It’s the story of Frank McCourt’s childhood growing up desperately poor in Ireland. His mother can’t feed the children because his father drinks all his earnings away.

• It was every bit as gruelling and heartbreaking as the truth required it to be.
• “Sobriety often felt like gripping onto monkey bars with sweaty metallic palms,” she writes, describing how it was to quit drinking again after a relapse.
• Here, Naus recounts jail time, an attempted murder charge and an uphill battle to reclaim a life nearly lost to the stranglehold of addiction in this outrageous memoir.
• If you’ve been playing catch-up for the past few years, here are some of the celebrity memoirs worth the read.
• I cried a few times, but I didn’t get that seasick feeling and have to stop this time.
• Two years after her murder, my whole self was still clamped shut, bracing against the truth of what had happened to Sabina—to my first and favorite childhood playmate.

The best books on Drugs, recommended by Mark Kleiman

This book provides language for sharing our most heartbreaking moments as a way to connect. Stories heal, and no circle knows that more than the recovery circle. The simple fact that we are not alone in our struggle can be enough to find our way out of the dark.

‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir’

For rTMS or dTMS treatments, you’ll relax in a chair at your healthcare professional’s office or clinic. Actress, director, producer and activist Kerry Washington offers an intimate look into her life in her first-ever memoir, Thicker Than Water. If you’ve been playing catch-up for the past few years, here are some of the celebrity memoirs worth the read. Memoirs can be highly influential — to find some of the best, look at The 20 Most Influential Memoirs of All Time.

Books by Matt Rowland Hill

If you have depression, migraine, OCD or tobacco addiction and you’ve already tried other treatment options, TMS may be worth exploring. Approved by the FDA to treat tobacco addiction in 2020, TMS offers another option. In a study involving 115 people, those who underwent 13 dTMS sessions delivered over three weeks had a higher quit rate after treatment compared to study participants who received a placebo treatment. This form of TMS may not be the best choice for people with depression https://ecosoberhouse.com/ who also have chronic headaches, as the tapping sensation from the rTMS magnet can worsen headache symptoms. Similarly, people with very severe depression usually find swifter relief from electroconvulsive therapy coupled with medication, says Dr. Kung. This includes people who are failing to thrive, losing weight from decreased appetite, experiencing slowed thoughts and movements, struggling with personal hygiene or basic self-care, and not getting out of bed much.

Here are some of the best books related to drug and alcohol use disorders.

• Goldberg said the pain she experienced during childbirth was enough to make her not want to do it again.
• Resmaa Menakem shares the latest research on body trauma and neuroscience, as well as provides actionable steps towards healing as a collective.
• Shubaly narrates his work exclusively for Audible, and his reading feels like a good friend telling you a story and offering advice.

20) A Happier Hour by Rebecca WellerAt 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. She takes us through her journey of recovery in this moving, inspiring story about giving up something you think you love to live the life you truly want. While self-help books are not a solution for long-term recovery, they can be very helpful for your “emotional recovery”. There is no replacement for a comprehensive treatment program to help anyone struggling with an alcohol or substance use disorder, but reading true stories from others with similar experiences can be an excellent complement to treatment.

For now I’ll mention one more convention of addiction memoirs, although it differs slightly from the others because it’s more directly concerned with how they’re read than with how they’re written. The pleasures we expect from the form range from the edifying (empathy, inspiration) to the unseemly (voyeurism, vicarious transgression) to mention just a few. But many readers —like the best addiction memoirs one I was during my time in rehab in 2015—also come to it seeking something often considered antithetical to art. I mean help, whether in the form of identification, solace or instruction. I said this convention concerned reading more directly than writing, but—since all good writing involves deep sensitivity to the reader’s experience—the two things are ultimately inseparable.

Check out our picks for the best addiction and recovery memoirs. Hepola spends hungover mornings piecing together the missing hours of the nights before and frequently wakes up with unrecognizable men in unfamiliar places. She eventually realizes a life of forgotten times and missing memories is no life at all, and she sets out to find her identity outside of drinking. Functioning and fun-loving, this author’s love for wine hardly seems like a problem until her attempt to cut back proves much more challenging than she had imagined. 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.