The 9 Most Moving Memoirs About Addiction
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. If you’re looking to break free of the social pressure of cocktails and bar hopping, this is the book for you. Addiction and recovery memoirs are great reminders that you are not alone and that many, many others have gone down the difficult road to sobriety. In addition to personal stories, many of these books delve deep into the personal and societal psychology of drinking and drug use. The various accidental similarities between these books began, before long, to harden into a blueprint, which countless books have faithfully reproduced.
For me the essential works are Permanent Midnight (1995) by Jerry Stahl , The Los Angeles Diaries (2003) by James Brown, The Outrun (2015) by Amy Liptrot, Lit (2019) by Mary Karr and Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man (2010) by Bill Clegg. Journalist Jenny Valentish takes a gendered look at drugs and alcohol, using her own story to light the way. Mining the expertise of 35 leading researchers, clinicians and psychiatrists, she explores the early best alcoholic memoirs predictors of addictive behaviour, such as trauma, temperament and impulsivity. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as “liquid armor,” a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.It was love at first sight.
Best Biographies » The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
Ann’s book is such a unique and insightful combination of personal experience and scientific research. Sarah’s writing is sharp and relatable; a more recent, modern voice in the recovery space. So many of us look at “blacking out” as benign, or normal—an indicator of a “successful” night of drinking. 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.
You’ll also find options for dessert drinks, frozen drinks, and holiday drinks without relying on sugar for flavor. The esteemed and late New York Times columnist David Carr turned his journalistic eye on his own life in this memoir, investigating his own past as a cocaine addict and sifting through muddied memories to discover the truth. The story follows Carr’s unbelievable arc through addiction, recovery, cancer, and life as a single parent to come to an understanding of what those dark years meant. And yes, while Hamilton does wax poetic about food (yum!) she also opens up about her idyllic childhood, which implodes after her parents separate.
The best memoirs of drug and alcohol addiction
The fact that, in so doing, she effectively obeyed a formal convention of addiction memoir helps explain how many of those conventions arose. It was not due to some kind of lineage of influence reaching back to De Quincey, but the inevitable result of applying the simplifying dictates of storytelling and lowest-common-denominator audience needs to roughly similar experiences. The fact that even a great artist like Ditlevsen can capitulate to such dictates, if only once, demonstrates how powerful they are. Although I think they can all be considered addiction memoirs, and share a familial resemblance with other examples of that form, none of them feel remotely imprisoned by its conventions. And yet—even though each of these books goes its own way, never hesitating to flout a trope or trample a norm to serve its story—they don’t go in terror of the conventions either. Where the story they have to tell echoes others, they let us hear that echo.
Activist and #MeToo founder Tarana Burke’s memoir is a haunting story of liberation. Attacked as a child, she grappled with self-blame and fear of damaging her family. Here, in her memoir, she highlights her journey of healing in supporting marginalized women and her realization of the need to confront her own past trauma to effectively help others.
Oar Health Member Stories: Cutting Back on Alcohol
This book offers inspiration for alcohol-free drinks and activities, and tangible tips on how to navigate a month (or beyond!) without alcohol. Prozac Nation is one of the most influential memoirs about mental illness, often credited as one of the first modern memoirs in the wide-ranging genre we know today. Elizabeth Wurtzel bares it all in her memoir full of breakdowns, therapy, addiction, and suicide attempts with powerful writing that brings readers into the throes of mood disorders. It’s not a biography — the story of a person’s life told by someone else — or an autobiography — a person telling their own life story. A memoir is the story of a specific time or theme or experience of a person’s life. It’s a deep meditation on something like growing up poor, or having a debilitating mental illness, or living in a racist America.
- Alcohol Explained is a spectacularly helpful guide on alcohol and alcoholism.
- It is the first of Orwell’s published works and set the tone for his dystopian literary classics — and high school required reading — Animal Farm and 1984.
- But what does that mean, exactly, and how do you go about establishing boundaries?
- This is one of the best memoirs on alcohol recovery in my opinion.
- The book covers her whole first-year experience of sobriety, as well as the unexpected challenges she faced along the way.
- This book is highly recommended for anyone who, like me, is or was terrified of living a boring life.