In Mindful Drinking, she reveals what she learned along the way in a 4-step process for a holistic transformation to measured drinking habits and a better, healthier life. It’s no wonder relapse can be tempting without the right support in place. By the time I found this book, I already knew from experience that supplements can repair your brain after you quit drinking.
The Alcoholic / Addict Within: Our Brain, Genetics, Psychology and the Twelve Steps as Psychotherapy, by Andrew P., MD
This powerful memoir follows Cain’s life as she navigates a substance use disorder, incarceration, and sex work over the course of 19 years. Healing Neen provides a personal look into the connection between incarceration, substance use, and trauma. Her story is a beautiful reminder of how safety and support can lead the way to incredible healing. This is a lesser known series of essays on the intersection of alcohol and womanhood. The author, Kristi Coulter, engages the reader with her deep insight and quick wit.
- When you conquer alcoholism, you’ll free up the energy that you used to expend on drinking.
- Whether you’ve been to treatment, you’re contemplating rehab, or your loved one is struggling with substance misuse, the more tools you have in your arsenal the better.
- Reinventing yourself as a student of human nature is one of the finest ways to rekindle your interest in the world around you.
- She’s focusing on her schoolwork and is on track to finish high school at the top of her class.
- To help our readers take the next step in their mental health journey, Choosing Therapy has partnered with leaders in mental health and wellness.
Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member: Because Books Matter
Throughout the course of the book, Zailckas reveals the underlying emotional pain and lack of confidence that she tried to express through excessive drinking. She also closely examines both the internal and external factors that drove her to seek help in ending her destructive cycle of binge drinking. I have been deeply entrenched in the dual worlds of mental health and recovery addiction since 1982. I also know that no matter how bad it ever gets in the experience of being in a recovering couple, if one has a willing heart and an open mind, great change is possible. In Loving Someone in Recovery, therapist Beverly Berg offers powerful tools for the partners of recovering addicts. If you’ve ever wondered how one can go from a first drink to full-blown alcoholism, Alcohol Explained uncovers the chemical, physiological, and psychological impact of alcohol on humans.
Push Off from Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else), by Laura McKowen
Decades later, Cat reminisces about those days with Marlena and learns to forgive herself and move on from those days. Julie Buntin’s Marlena is a stunning look at alcoholism, addiction, and bad decisions, and how they haunt us forever. 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.
It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, by Mark Wolynn
- To vote on existing books from the list, beside each book there is a link vote for this book clicking it will add that book to your votes.
- With humility and resolve, the inspiring story shows a woman determined to get sober and live a better life.
- As you can see, I began with books about the biochemical basis of drunkenness.
- In it he unravels the lies he once believed on his journey to sobriety and the methods that finally worked for him.
- Prozac Nation is an important piece of work, notable for its distinctive youthful voice and confessional nature.
- It also contains more useful information than any official personal training textbook I’ve read.
- The co-founder and CEO of Whole 30 and bestselling author, Melissa Urban, helped millions of people transform their relationship with food.
Discussing alcohol’s impact on our health and minds, author Catherine Gray illustrates how a sober life can truly be intoxicating. Exploring the thoughts of an addict and a life unraveled by narcotics, this memoir spans the author’s struggles with opioid use disorder, to her time in jail, and ultimately to her recovery. High Achiever offers hope and inspiration and a raw and page-turning read. For more books about alcoholism and addiction, check out this list of 100 must-read books about addiction.
‘We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life,’ by Laura McKowen
She understands that choosing to give up alcohol is highly personal and everyone has different motivations, but she also knows that our society has normalized alcohol and drinking culture past the point of being healthy. This one likely feels very different from the rest of the books on this list – but hear us out. Often, alcoholics struggle with letting go best alcohol recovery books of their drinking habits because of the fear of missing out on “all life has to offer.” Simply put, many feel like it’s impossible to have fun without booze. That’s certainly how authors Jardine Libaire and Amanda Eyre Ward felt. But rather than heightening their senses and allowing them to enjoy a “technicolor life,” they found alcohol just made them numb.
Helpful Books to Read During Recovery
If you struggle with anything related to body image, you won’t regret this read. This book may also help you see sobriety as a gift you’re giving to your body. Written by a cognitive neuroscientist with former substance use struggles, Marc Lewis emphasizes the habitual reward loop in the brain that can cause a substance use disorder to develop. This book also examines the brain’s ability to create new neural pathways and lose the desire to use substances.
Reading We are the Luckiest by Laura McKowen can quite possibly save your life. For anyone hiding in the shadows of shame, this book is a guiding light. For every parent riddled with guilt, for anyone waking up in the shame cave (again), for every person who has had a messy struggle forward towards redemption… this book is for you. We asked addiction experts and people in recovery to share the titles they found most useful. There really is nothing harder than trying to get along day in and day out with the same person, especially when addiction and codependency have been in the mix.