9 Best Quit Lit Books and Sobriety Memoirs to Inspire Your Recovery



Wishful Drinking is a brutally honest and light-hearted take on addiction and mental illness. At Banyan Treatment Centers Philadelphia, we understand how addictive and harmful heroin is. It’s a powerful opioid that’s difficult to quit without professional help. We’ve helped numerous people recover from heroin addiction and stay sober with our heroin addiction treatment. This memoir tells of her painful descent from depression into drug addiction and, eventually, how she broke free. Despite its dark beginning, this is ultimately a hopeful book that inspires readers to root for her throughout. Her confessional style of writing has left an indelible mark that remains influential today.


By Augusten Burroughs is an incredibly accurate depiction of what it’s like to be a young alcoholic in New York City. Recover from addiction at home with medication and online therapy––from the leader in virtual addiction care. Eric Clapton is a world renowned singer, songwriter, rock and blues guitarist, member of the Yardbirds and Cream. Immediate New York Times bestseller and released to high praise, Journalist Beth Macy focuses on central Appalachia as the heart of crisis and widens the scope from there to show how individuals and communities are affected. Through talking to opioid users, family members, dealers, doctors, judges, activists, emergency responders, and law enforcement, we get a much larger picture of the causes and effects. Minnesota-based freelancer and health advocate who aims to empower others through her work. 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. Ria Health offers several FDA-approved medications for alcohol use disorder. When combined with counseling, this approach is proven highly effective.

Although everyone’s addiction and recovery stories are different, the core of these experiences is often the same.

Dr. Hart takes many preconceived notions about drugs and the U.S drug war and turns them on their head, analyzing them through scientific and then social lenses. One Hit Away is the heartbreaking yet hopeful story of a young man’s struggle with opioid addiction. In it, Jordan Barnes shares how his heroin addiction brought him to the brink best addiction memoirs of ruin. As you work through the recovery process, you may find these addiction recovery books valuable. Whether you prefer firsthand accounts or polished, scientific writing, there’s a book on this list that will pique your interest. I read this book before I became a parent and was floored, but have thought about it even more since.

A raw, real and well-written account of one freelance journalist’s addiction to the legal and socially acceptable drug, alcohol. Like many, the author’s journey was one of the functioning alcoholic, and many didn’t know she even had a problem. This is the case with so many Americans, and unfortunately, most never hit that bottom that forces them to finally get help. Her account of her alcoholism and her eventual recovery is thorough, moving and delves into other issues including anorexia. It’s usually written with an eloquent yet irreverent type of honesty, a rawness that so many recovering addicts can relate to. Humor is often part of the package and there is frequently a theme of hope and redemption in these memoirs — though not always. A relationship is, among other things, a shared story – or sometimes, a mutually held delusion.

Addiction Memoirs Written By Women

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. In his follow-up to his first memoir, Tweak, which dealt with his journey into meth addiction, Sheff details his struggle to stay clean. In and out of rehab, he falls into relapse, engaging in toxic relationships and other self-destructive behaviors that threaten to undo the hard-won progress he’s made. At the age of 15, Cat Marnell began to unknowingly “murder her life” when she became hooked on the ADHD medication prescribed to her by her psychiatrist father. For the first time in a long time, hope doesn’t feel dangerous. Right now, there is just pain, but after the coda of recovery, pain can be retrofitted to have meaning. The clawing desperation to fix her, the senselessness of dramatic falls, the sadness of drinking in a closet over the holidays can have value, even if it doesn’t have it in the moment. There is hope that once things get better, this moment that I’m living in now will actually have been something useful instead of just pain.
best addiction memoirs
This is just how it has always been since her introduction to Southern Comfort when she was just fourteen. Engaging, readable, and honest, this book is like getting a hug from your best sober buddy. There’s still a huge amount of stigma around being a black woman in recovery, which makes Chaney Allen’s voice crucial in the recovery sphere. In fact, she was reportedly the first African American woman to publish an autobiography about the impact of discrimination in recovery and the various hurdles black people have to overcome when they get sober.

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But it’s not always possible to connect with others in recovery. In this book, McKowen talks about her personal story along with how she faced the facts, the question of AA, and dealing with other people’s drinking. Although she doesn’t sugarcoat how difficult sobriety can be (and yes, it’s not without its struggles), she continues to write about the many blessings of living an honest life without the debilitating shame of addiction. This book explores the next fifteen years of her life, including the various lies that she told herself, and others, about her drug use. With tons of heart and wisdom, Khar eventually helps readers recognize the shame and stigma surrounding addiction and how there is no one path to recovery. At the end of the day, you’ll want to devour this book because it is ultimately a life-affirming story of resilience that is a must-read. In the literature world, you can find books about addiction and recovery in a genre known as “quit lit.” Quit lit is full of authors sharing their personal experiences and resources to help others who are where they’ve been.
best addiction memoirs
Janelle Hanchett chronicles the story of embracing motherhood through the devastating separation from her children at the height of addiction. Her quest for sobriety includes rehabs and therapy—necessary steps to begin a journey into realizing and accepting an imperfect self within an imperfect life. For any mother or person who has felt like an outsider in your own life, you might just relate. Often, we hear the stories of people with addiction finding redemption once they have children—but this is not that kind Sober Home of story, which is precisely why we love it. It’s about a woman who longs to belong and find comfort in her new life with her husband and baby but instead develops a gripping addiction to wine. More than a journey through addiction and recovery from it, this is a tale about how trauma shapes us, and how we can only free ourselves from its hold by facing it. Mary Karr is known for her wit and charming style, and in these pages, she discusses pretty much all her life struggles, not only those with alcohol.

The 11 Best Addiction and Sobriety Books

But for many alcoholics and binge drinkers, one drink is too many, and a thousand is never enough. Alcohol memoirs that document the author’s struggle with booze have become a sub-genre of their own. The books on this list will stock your bookshelves with hilarious, shocking, and tragic stories about the downward spiral of alcohol addiction. While This Naked Mind shows that you have the tools to reprogram your mind and live a life free from alcohol, Cold Turkey offers practical steps to get you through the first month of recovery. Like Annie Grace, Mishka Shubaly uses his own messy history with alcoholism and recovery to show just how difficult the road to recovery can be. The author argues that “one-size-fits-all” plans, like 12-step programs, do not set you up for success. Rather, to become truly free from addiction, he recommends finding a way to define sobriety in your own terms. Shubaly narrates his work exclusively for Audible, and his reading feels like a good friend telling you a story and offering advice. In Amy Dresner’s memoir My Fair Junkie, she recounts her life from her idyllic childhood to her methamphetamine addiction. Dresner offers an honest and shameless account of her struggles with meth abuse and recovery.

Harris Wittels didn’t fit the stereotype of what a junkie looks like. He was a successful comedian, actor, producer, and writer for Sarah Silverman and on shows like Parks and Recreation and Master of None. Even with all his talent and jobs coming his way, he was not able to get clean and stay clean, eventually dying from an overdose in 2015 at age 29. Everything is Horrible and Wonderful is written by Harris’s sister, Stephanie, about his tragic death and the aftermath of losing her younger brother who was her best friend and also an addict. They call into question the beliefs we’ve been raised with, and stereotypes of addiction. Each of these authors demands that we face addiction as an intimate, human story as well as a broad public health and safety issue. If you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, MATClinics is here to help.

This memoir is poetic and a treat for lovers of beautiful writing. This is a raw memoir that makes you feel like you’re there with the writer, through all her shame, all her hiding, and all her self-accusations of being a terrible mother because of her drinking. Her struggle is beautifully portrayed, and you also get to emerge with her on the other side once she regains her sobriety once more. Her quest for sobriety includes rehabs and therapy — necessary steps to begin a journey into realizing and accepting an imperfect self within an imperfect life. Often, we hear the stories of people with addiction being redeemed by their children — but this is not that kind of story, which is precisely why we love it. It’s about a woman who longs to belong and find comfort in her new life with husband and baby but instead develops a gripping addiction to wine. What happens when an ambitious young woman is keeping a secret of addiction? High-profile writer Cat Marnell answers the question in the gripping memoir of her life as she battles bulimia on top of an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. Dresner battles through sex addiction and starting over in her 40s after she went as low as she could imagine.
best addiction memoirs






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