Trying to blackout things from my childhood that caused me so much anxiety and pain. And then having to remember and heal from it all when I got sober. Instead of turning to substances, I’ve learned to put it all in a box. Literally – I went out and bought myself an index-card file.
Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol
Often, when we think of books about addiction and specifically alcoholism (in my case), we think of important, tell-all works of nonfiction. Memoirs like Sarah Hepola’s Blackout, Augusten Burroughs’ Dry, and Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska are recent, searing examples of first person accounts of being drunk and then, eventually, being sober. There are also the self-help books, the AA manuals, the well-meaning but often dry (no pun, and so on) tomes to help one acquire clarity and consistency in a life where addiction often creates chaos and disorder. Divorce, abandonment, foreclosure and a mass shooting… Mishka Shubaly had plenty of reasons to wallow in drink and drugs, and he does so with wild abandon in I Swear I’ll Make It Up to You. His first full-length memoir follows him from a seemingly endless rock bottom to a passion for running that leads him out of a life of self-destruction and chaos. It’s an inspiring and, at times, unbelievable tale told with unflinching honesty and a heavy dose of self-deprecation.
“Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol”
But even more than how it captures the bleakness of alcoholism, what I most value in this book is how she narrates her recovery with such brutal honesty. This is no joyful, linear skip towards sobriety and redemption. She keeps showing up to 12-step meetings, even when they do nothing for her. Her breakthrough arrives as much through exhaustion as some kind of epiphany. She discovers in Catholicism a spirituality that makes sense to her and seems to keep her sober, but she doesn’t proselytise or become too holy for irony.
Alcohol addiction memoirs and are they bullshit..?
Octavia Bright’s This Ragged Grace beautifully articulates her journey into sobriety, alongside her dad’s descent into Alzheimer’s. amphetamine addiction treatment I worked with Erin on a deeply personal essay when she was an editor at Ravishly and was so excited when her memoir was published. Though we used different drugs and came from different backgrounds, our stories were similar, as are most addicts. We use to get rid of the pain, the shame, the anxiety/depression, whatever ails us. We find reprieve through our addictions, but find a loving life in recovery.
Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction by Elizabeth Vargas
Eventually saved by her family, King writes with equal parts sensitivity and humor about redemption and compassion for others. I could not put this book down (literally), talk about gut-wrenching honesty and not holding anything back. When I worked in beauty, Cat was a beauty editor at Lucky and xoJane.com, so I knew of her.
“Blackout” by Sarah Hepola
I will read anything Clare Pooley writes simply because she is a magical storyteller. The Sober Diaries is one of the best books in the quit lit category. Funny, informative, and authentic, Poole has a welcoming light-hearted voice on the very serious topic of substance use. This book serves as a beacon to anyone who’s looking to change their relationship with alcohol. A captivating story of a highly accomplished well-known professional in the spotlight who was brave enough to share her story. Elizabeth Vargas takes off her perfectly poised reporter mask and shows you the authentic person behind the anchor desk.
- Haunted by his dad’s addiction, Jesse Thistle’s From the Ashes is a gritty, gripping book about his own long struggle with addiction and homelessness before he went into rehab, found love and became a scholar.
- So even though I identify as a trauma survivor, I also struggle with a lot of codependent behaviors that I learned from alcoholics.
- Alcohol Explained is a spectacularly helpful guide on alcohol and alcoholism.
- The simple fact that we are not alone in our struggle can be enough to find our way out of the dark.
Raised in Barry, working class, he had been proud of the beautiful life he had built for us. He was homeless and often behind bars in his final two years. I remember when I first saw this title, I wished I had thought of it myself. Though mine may have been, Girl Walks Into a Bar and Stays Way Too Long.
Clegg had a thriving life as a literary agent when he walked away from his seemingly-fulfilling world for a two-month crack binge. Having just been released from rehab nine https://mycounselhub.com/2024/12/25/reorder-point-what-is-it-and-how-to-calculate-it/ months earlier, his relapse cost him his home, money, career and almost his life. Capturing the drama, tension, paranoia and short-term bliss of drug addiction, his book explores how the patterns of addiction can be traced to the past. Before his death in 2015, Carr was a beloved New York Times journalist.
Blackout by Sarah Hepola is a brutally honest quit lit memoir of living through blackout after blackout—something that many who’ve struggled with heavy alcohol use can relate to. This book serves as a guide for anyone starting their journey with a 30 day sobriety challenge. The Dry Challenge can be especially helpful for people who drink socially, and are looking to take a structured step back to re-evaluate their habits. This book offers inspiration for best alcoholic memoirs alcohol-free drinks and activities, and tangible tips on how to navigate a month (or beyond!) without alcohol.
In 1992, Mishka Shubaly survived a mass shooting at his school, his parents divorced, his father abandoned him, and he swore he would right all the wrongs for his mother. Instead, he began a love affair with the bottle and barely crawled out, but he did, and we cheer him on at each twist and turn in his journey. She is a courageous woman in recovery and someone I enjoy following on social media. He comes from the book publishing world and, again, was someone who was successful and smart, but in active addiction. He lost trust of people around him and in his field, but through sobriety he has been able to regain that trust and help many people along the way.
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. Meanwhile the reader is tacitly licensed to enjoy all this mayhem and calamity with a degree of voyeuristic relish and, equally, to take a vicarious pleasure in the author’s recklessness and transgression. The tension between on the wagon/off the wagon is often good fodder for literature. Early sobriety forces, like giving birth, a quick and complete break with a former life in order to make way for a new, sometimes ambiguously desired one.