Drink brings to light the increase in DUIs, “drunkorexia” (limiting eating to get drunker), and other health problems among young women in the United States. She started sneaking sips from her parents’ wine glasses as a kid, and went through adolescence drinking more and more. By the time she was an adult in a big city, all she did was drink. Blackout is her poignant story of alcoholism and those many missing hours that disappeared when she had just enough to drink to wipe out her memory. Hepola gets through the darkest parts of her story with self-deprecating humor and a keen eye on what she was burying by drinking. Finally, at the behest of his coworkers and boss, he ends up in a rehab that specifically caters to gay and lesbian patients.
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Probably the least-known work of the Brontë sisters, by the least-known sister, Anne’s second and last novel was published to great success in 1848. Helen ultimately escapes her marriage and pretends to be a widow, earning a living as an artist to care for herself and her young son. The book was so upsetting to her sister Charlotte that, after Anne’s death she passed on the chance to have it reprinted, and the book was neglected for a really long time. Today it is widely considered to be a landmark in early feminist literature, but its frank depictions of addiction within marriage are just as deserving of acclaim. The second major problem for anyone writing an addiction memoir—and it’s often connected to the first—is how to conclude it.
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This book tells an incredible story of not only recovery, but also how it connects to race and sexual identity. Meanwhile successful writing always surprises and challenges us, perhaps by defying the conventions of the form to which it belongs or simply by refreshing them in some way. Only a handful of the addiction memoirs https://ecosoberhouse.com/ of recent decades are also, in my view, singular works of art. In Recovery, Russell Brand shares an amusing yet valuable story of addiction and the path to sobriety. As a wildly famous celebrity, he struggled with more than just alcohol. But it’s easy to resonate with his emotions surrounding addiction, no matter your vice.
- Still, his insatiable desire for alcohol and sex upends his entire life on one fateful night.
- Here, we dig into some of the most influential memoirs of all time.
- Police records didn’t match his story, and Frey later admitted to embellishing key facts.
- But it’s not all bad; his dad teaches him to love stories as he tells tales of angels and saviors.
- In Kitchen Confidential, Chef Anthony Bourdain spilled all the dirty secrets he learned in 25 years of working in the culinary trade, chock full of sex, drugs, and drama.
- 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.
- This is one of the best memoirs on alcohol recovery in my opinion.
by Caroline Knapp
It would be really easy to simply gloss over the pivotal, seeping role of alcoholism in this book, being as it is, a truly gripping murder story. And yet, the psychological terror of the book is informed by the dual psychosis of its main characters, one of whom is a young man, an alcoholic best alcoholic memoirs who seems intent on destroying his organs as quickly as possible. Bruno’s complete lack of contact with reality makes his alcoholism seemingly beside the point, but as the story progresses, I find my sympathies shifting as Bruno becomes more and more helplessly imprisoned by his disease.
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Persepolis is told in black-and-white comics, which makes this memoir even more iconic. It’s popularly assigned in English classes and also has been banned several times in schools. Terry achieved long-term sobriety at one time, and she helped many women. It made me realize the pain I would have brought to my parents if they had lost me. I used to work in fashion/beauty/celebrity PR, and I related to her lifestyle before she got sober.
Drunk–ish by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
- The acclaimed author of Prozac Nation goes from depression to addiction with this equally devastating personal account.
- You’ll also find options for dessert drinks, frozen drinks, and holiday drinks without relying on sugar for flavor.
- This book provides language for sharing our most heartbreaking moments as a way to connect.
- If this book resonates with you, be sure to check out Grace’s podcast of the same name, This Naked Mind, where she and guests continue to dissect alcohol’s grasp on our lives and culture.
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. Instead she presents herself as a kind of Godly schmuck, chronically slow on the spiritual uptake.
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She’s drawn to Marlena’s world and joins her on an adventure of drinking, smoking, and kissing. Marlena’s dark habits worsen, though, and she ends up dead within the year. Decades later, Cat reminisces about those days with Marlena and learns to forgive herself and move on from those days. Julie Buntin’s Marlena is a stunning look at alcoholism, addiction, and bad decisions, and how they haunt us forever. Ann Dowsett Johnston combines in-depth research and her own story of recovery in this important book about the relationship between women and alcohol.
- The story surrounding the trial, and the young Black man she accused, felt flimsy.
- Ahead, see the 15 stories of struggle, failure, recovery, and grace that have moved us the most.
- Wilhelmson’s story proves that alcoholism can take many forms.
- Plus, you’ll get to read beautiful writing, and expand your worldview and perspectives.
- And then he was dead, leaving her with even more questions about the enigma who raised her.
- But it’s easy to resonate with his emotions surrounding addiction, no matter your vice.
- 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.
- But they struggled with how to have that life without alcohol.
- During the most unsettling time of my life, I craved all the messy, tragic, complex, wonderful stories that could show me what was on the other side.