Jersey Shore Stars Inspiring Advice to Battling Addiction

best addiction memoirs

It was every bit as gruelling and heartbreaking as the truth required it to be. And I can’t think of a better compliment to a writer of addiction https://ecosoberhouse.com/ memoir – or, indeed, any writer – than that. But Ditlevsen’s single conventional moment also, I think, underlines her originality.

best addiction memoirs

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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. But it’s not all bad; his dad teaches him to love stories as he tells tales of angels and saviors. The former was a 2006 best addiction memoirs Oprah’s Book Club pick, touted as a riveting memoir about the 23-year-old’s life of crime, drug abuse, and rehabilitation. After fifteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, a magazine investigation found much of the book to be fabricated after they couldn’t find Frey’s mugshot.

best addiction memoirs

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This is also helpful for friends and family members as they support you through the recovery process. 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.

Aug. 31 is We Love Memoirs Day. So celebrate with a good book!

It’s a deep meditation on something like growing up poor, or having a debilitating mental illness, or living in a racist America. Here, we dig into some of the most influential memoirs of all time. 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. Sometimes, personal stories can have a profound impact on individuals struggling with addiction and seeking recovery. The following books offer powerful narratives of individuals who have faced their demons and triumphed over addiction.

best addiction memoirs

More Resources on Your Sobriety Journey

Krosoczka is a well-known children’s illustrator and author who didn’t realize till later in life that his mother is an addict. Growing up, he was raised by his grandparents after she can no longer care for his basic needs due to being in and out of rehab and his father is out of the picture. This graphic memoir is an honest and accurate portrayal told from the child’s point of view of what it’s like growing up with a suffering parent who still loves and cares and is trying their best but are wrestling with a terrible addiction. She looks after her children, enjoys drinks with friends, and is a successful writer. But she recognizes her relationship with alcohol is different than that of the casual-drinking moms in her friend group. When she realizes sobriety is her only path forward, she keeps a diary of her road to recovery, from finding a sponsor to discovering a new social life not centered around alcohol.

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But though our world-views are in some ways profoundly different, few books have enriched me as a reader and a person more than hers. Here, Nikki shares the diary entries—some poetic, some scatterbrained, some bizarre—of those dark times. Joining him are Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Slash, Rick Nielsen, Bob Rock, and a host of ex-managers, ex-lovers, and more. Jerry Stahl was a writer with significant and successful screenwriting credits — Dr. Caligari, Twin Peaks, Moonlighting, and more. But despite that success, Stahl’s heroin habit began to consume him, derailing his career and destroying his health until one final, intense crisis inspired him to get clean.

best addiction memoirs

What was meant to be a positive and happy change led to depression, which she self-medicated with drinking, eventually consuming over a bottle of wine a day. If this book resonates with you, be sure to check out Grace’s podcast of the same name, This Naked Mind, where she and guests continue to dissect alcohol’s grasp on our lives and culture. Matt Rowland Hill was born in 1984 in Pontypridd, South Wales, and grew up in Wales and England. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, the Telegraph and other outlets. Dependency is startlingly unlike any other memoir about addiction—that I know of, at least.

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  • When it comes to addiction and recovery, books can serve as powerful resources that offer guidance, inspiration, and hope.
  • As her marriage dissolved and she struggled to find a reason to stay clean, Karr turned to Catholicism as a light at the end of the tunnel.
  • It’s like scarfing a bacon cheeseburger and washing it down with a shot of wheatgrass.
  • She also nests the stories of ordinary people who have dealt with addiction into the mix, changing their names to preserve Alcoholics Anonymous–enforced obscurity, creating an expansive, generous collage.

There, he nestled in with a motley crew of characters, including a pedophile who lived in the backyard shed, and grew up in squalor under the strangest of circumstances. Alison Bechdel’s father ran a funeral home, which their dysfunctional family called the Fun Home. In this graphic memoir, Bechdel details her complicated relationship with her father.

Her bewilderment about this sudden loss of control is magnified by the intensity of her feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Port-au-Prince and with whom she connected instantly and deeply. 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.