Sarah also explores how alcohol affected her relationships with her friends, family, and even her cat. Ria Health offers several FDA-approved medications for alcohol use disorder. When combined with counseling, this approach is proven highly effective.

Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story by Mac McClelland

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 Recovering is a wide-ranging and frequently excellent book about addiction, but it is stymied when it attempts to be too zoomed-out. Addiction, with its cyclical copping, its single-minded want, is a monotonous thing. But the experiences of those addicted differ vastly, based on race, class, the substances in question, the time and place.

Powerful Memoirs About Mental Illness & Addiction

Blackout shows how you can grow into the person you want to be and leave alcohol in the past—no matter where you are now. We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. Next you’ve chosen to drug addiction treatment recommend Tove Ditlevsen’s Dependency, the third book in her Copenhagen Trilogy.

Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol

While not solely focused on addiction, Walls’ story weaves in themes of substance abuse, neglect, and resilience. The memoir is both heartbreaking and inspiring, showcasing Walls’ journey from chaos to stability. But seriously, I hope at least one of these memoirs speaks to you.

• The book flags only when she reaches for universality instead of focuses on writing her own story, which is already an expansive account of a woman confronting her addiction and her obsession with writers who drink.
• I could not put this book down (literally), talk about gut-wrenching honesty and not holding anything back.
• Dr. John F. Kelly combines personal anecdotes with evidence-based techniques to guide readers on their journey.
• This book is a guide on how to literally be a sober lush.

Forgotten 20th-Century Classic Books

• Karr arrived with a unique literary voice that combined rich Texan and burst of lyricism.
• But the process of self-acceptance doesn’t happen overnight.
• It Was Me All Along is the brutally honest story of how Mitchell lost half her body weight without sacrificing the satisfaction of a good meal.
• Books on addiction recovery offer more than just stories.

But opioid addiction soon takes over her life, transforming her into a person she barely recognizes. At her lowest point, Jenkins finds herself being arrested by officers who are also her friends. Her four months in jail serve as the starting point to her eventual recovery. High Achiever is a mind-spinning memoir of how quickly things go wrong and how much hard work it takes to set things right.

Alcohol Lied to Me by Craig Beck

For a nonfiction book that sheds light on the prescription drug crisis in the US, and how that came about, look no further than Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, which reads like a thriller. I think I subconsciously best addiction memoirs knew it, but was in total denial. Why else would I have been mesmerized by When a Man Loves a Woman or 28 Days in my early 20s? These movies and books let me know I was not alone, that there were other people walking around who drank like I did. It’s a witty, straightforward tale of the shenanigans, shame, and confusion that occurs in the morning-afters.

Addiction memoirs and personal stories help readers see that they are not alone in their struggles. They highlight the common challenges faced during recovery and demonstrate that overcoming addiction is possible. By sharing inspiring, true success stories, these books offer hope and motivate individuals to take positive steps forward in their own journey. The Recovering, when it operates as a memoir, is equally lucent; the reader is ferried into the perils of addiction by a nimble, stylish narrator.

Her life in shambles, it becomes clear that she is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 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. Find out by taking the McNally Editions reader quiz, which matches readers with a tailored subscription carefully curated to your tastes and sensibilities. This is an approachable recipe book using everyday healthy ingredients to make delicious alcohol-free drinks for every occasion.

• If you’re looking to break free of the social pressure of cocktails and bar hopping, this is the book for you.
• It was every bit as gruelling and heartbreaking as the truth required it to be.
• In his first novel, Burroughs gives a vivid, semi-autobiographical account of heroin addiction in the early 1950s.
• In addition to authoring two books (her second comes out March 2023), McKowen hosts the Tell Me Something True podcast.
• Undeterred, Whitaker carves out her own path to sobriety, one rooted in feminism and being honest with herself.

Best Books About Addiction

They’ll also remind you that women are undeniably resilient. Blackout is another raw and honest recovery memoir by Sarah Hepola. She takes the reader on a journey through her drinking career, eventually leading her down a binge-drinking, blackout spiral that takes a toll on every aspect of her life. It’s hard to write a list of the best books on sobriety and not include Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind. This book has helped thousands of people change their relationship with alcohol and quit for good. Drink is not an addiction memoir so much as an investigative look into why women, specifically, drink and despite my mindset at the time of reading it, I did find it fascinating.

The Best Novels: The 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction

But Ditlevsen’s single conventional moment also, I think, underlines her originality. The result was a tale whose bracing darkness is ultimately redeemed not by its perfunctorily hopeful ending but by the extraordinary force and beauty of its telling. Second, they contain sections describing the lurid https://ecosoberhouse.com/ drama and dreadful effects of addiction in unsparing detail. Unvarnished accounts of the havoc and disaster of addiction, whether played for farce or pathos, are as reliably found in the most artistically ambitious addiction memoirs as in the least.