Recovery Memoirs

This program is read by the author A guide to all kinds of addiction from a star who has struggled with heroin, alcohol, sex, fame, food and eBay, that will help addicts and their loved ones make the first steps into recovery “This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from...

My name is Brett. I'm a college-educated man who was once a husband of 26 years with two children, three businesses, and a large home with an actual white picket fence. I'm also a drug addict. And I have a tale to tell. It's about the despair of addiction and the absolute certainty that it can be overcome. Recovery is not simply abstinence, but a process of growing up. I spent my entire life searching for the key to long-term sobriety. I would like to share with you what I have learned.

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. 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.

This memoir chronicles the escapades of aspiring actor and writer Charlie Gray, his downward spiral into a vodka bottle, and his profound realizations about life, family, friends, booze, trauma, and relapse as a now-recovering alcoholic.

Marc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, deception, and crime.

Growing up in Charlotte, NC, my childhood was everything one would think of as normal. I went to a great school, had plenty of friends, took vacations, and had a close connection with my parents. It was all a seemingly perfect set up for a successful adulthood. But as senior year came to an end, and the familiarities of Charlotte began to fade, I entered a new space where love, depression, and a desperate search for purpose unraveled into a deep journey into drug and alcohol abuse. For the next 11 years, I’d chase highs from any drug I could find, move locations, cheat, lie, and steal ...

Sexual assault, addiction, and other traumatic experiences can leave both physical and emotional scars. For Jennifer Storm, these scars serve as a reminder - both of the darkness and suffering she once experienced, and of how far she has come. Blackout Girl is the heartbreaking, enlightening, and inspiring story of Jennifer's narrow escape from her own self-destructive instincts when all of the odds, and systems, were stacked against her.

From an early age, Amber van de Bunt knew she wasn't like the other girls in town. From childhood struggles with depression and eating disorders, her years as a topless dancer in Florida, and an eventual abortion and suicide attempt, to her rebirth in Los Angeles as a porn star named Karmen Karma, overcoming her relationship with her abusive mother, and her struggle to maintain a clean and sober lifestyle - van de Bunt's life has been a roller coaster. With humor, alacrity, and profound insight, she reveals her deepest, darkest secrets and pulls no punches - least of all with herself.

American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis. The narrative, which swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, is populated by a diverse cast of characters.

The single glass of wine with dinner... the cold beer on a hot day... the champagne flute raised in a toast... what I'd drink if Hunter S. Thompson wanted to get wasted with me... these are my fantasies lately. Too bad I've gone sober. When Sacha Z. Scoblic was drinking, she was a rock star; the days were rough and the nights filled with laughter and blackouts. Then she gave it up. She had to. Here are her adventures in an utterly and maddeningly sober world... and how she discovered that nothing is as odd and fantastic as life without a drink in hand.

Steve-O is best known for his wildly dangerous, foolish, painful, embarrassing, and sometimes death-defying stunts. At age 48, however, he faces his greatest challenge yet: getting older. A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions is a captivating exploration of life and how to live it by an individual who has already lived way more than a lifetime’s worth of extreme experiences. Steve-O grapples with the right balance between maturity and staying true to yourself, avoiding selfishness, and finding the right partner for life.

Mike Majlak was a 17-year-old from a loving middle-class family in Milford, Connecticut, when he got caught up in the opioid epidemic that swept the nation. For close to a decade thereafter, his life was a wasteland of darkness and despair. While his peers were graduating from college, buying homes, getting married, having kids, and leading normal lives, Mike was snorting Oxycontin, climbing out of cars at gunpoint, and burying his childhood friends.

(This is a re-release of "Born to Lose: Memoirs of a Compulsive Gambler" that was published by Hazelden Publishing on March 3, 2005. Reviews for that book on Amazon can be viewed at: https://www.amazon.com/Born-Lose-Memoirs-Compulsive-Gambler/dp/1592851533/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530771861&sr=8-1&keywords=born+to+lose%3A+memoirs+of+a+compulsive+gambler.) "My history of gambling really began before I was born." So opens Born to Lose, Bill Lee's self-told story of gambling addiction, set in San Francisco's Chinatown and steeped in a culture where it is not unheard of for gamblers (Lee's ...

George Diener, World War II veteran and traveling salesman, and his wife, Carol, had old-fashioned values and ordinary aspirations: a home, a family, the pleasure of watching their two sons grow up. But in February 1972, an unthinkable tragedy occurred in the basement of their Nassau County residence, shattering their hopes and dreams forever.

When addiction claims a child's life, a parent's world shatters. This heartfelt memoir shares the raw story of one mother losing three children to drug overdose and her painful journey through grief, despair, and questions for God. Through honest reflection and unflinching truth, the author invites readers into Cindy's struggle—from the devastation of drug abuse and child loss to the fragile steps toward hope. In the darkness of grief, she found strength, healing, and renewal through faith. This book is for every grieving parent, every family affected by addiction, and anyone seeking ...

Sentenced to 65 years in a Texas prison, Damon West once had it all. He came from a great family, in a home full of God, love, support, and opportunities to reach any goal. A natural born leader, an athlete with good looks and charm, he appeared to be the all-American kid pursuing his dreams. Underneath this facade, however, was an addict in the early stages of disease. After suffering childhood sexual abuse by a babysitter at the age of nine, Damon began putting chemicals into his body to alter the way he felt.

This deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her 15-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction. Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen.

Beginning innocently enough in his 20s, Neal Pollack discovers that pot makes everything - food, music, sex - better. Getting married, having a kid, and enjoying professional success didn't tamp down Pollack's addiction. As cannabis grew stronger and more widely available, Pollack's dependence was shadowed by the expansion and acceptance of the marijuana Big Business. Sober after joining a 12-step program, Neal outed himself publicly as a marijuana addict in a 2018 New York Times op-ed piece.

With heart-racing urgency and unflinching honesty, Jenkins takes you inside the grips of addiction and the desperate decisions it breeds. She is a born storyteller who lived an incredible story, from blackmail by an ex-boyfriend to a soul-shattering deal with a drug dealer, and her telling brims with suspense and unexpected wit. But the true surprise is her path to recovery. Tiffany breaks through the stigma and silence to offer hope and inspiration to anyone battling the disease - whether it’s a loved one or themselves.

The last time David Magee saw his son alive, William told him to write their family’s story in the hopes of helping others. Days later, David found William dead from an accidental drug overdose. Now, in a memoir suggestive of Augusten Burroughs meets Glennon Doyle, award-winning columnist and author David Magee answers his son's wish with a compelling, heartbreaking, and impossible to pause book that speaks to every individual and family.