Blog

For the most part, the story arc is tidy, allowing readers the rubbernecky thrills of second-hand vice with a dose of hard-won redemption as a chaser. It’s like scarfing a bacon cheeseburger and washing it down with a shot of wheatgrass. She looks after her children, enjoys drinks with friends, and is a successful writer. But she recognizes her relationship with alcohol is different than that of the casual-drinking moms in her friend group. When she realizes sobriety is her only path forward, she keeps a diary of her road to recovery, from finding a sponsor to discovering a new social life not centered around alcohol. With a reputation for hilarious honesty, as read in previous memoirs detailing her struggles with everything from mental illness to single life, Bryony Gordon is true to form in this detailed account of her alcohol-fueled downward spiral.

Register for an enhanced, personalized experience.

• Creating healthy boundaries is one of the most useful practices we can put into place in early sobriety.
• Living in poverty in the South in a racist country takes its toll, and for Ward, it is gutting.
• One characteristic I think I discern in the best addiction memoir is a certain humility that doesn’t strive after innovation for its own sake.
• In research done in part by Amaal J. Starling, M.D., at Mayo Clinic, 46% of study participants who used sTMS experienced more than a 50% reduction in their number of headache days.
• We’re privy to some scandals in this field, specifically sexual abuse and harassment and taking advantage of vulnerable people looking for help.

In all of these murder memoirs I read, there was a sense that the writer felt it was their duty to look directly at the ugly truth. Several state this outright; in others it’s present as an undercurrent, in the way the writers keep pushing forward despite nightmares, nausea, and visceral urges to flee. I had to keep going because I had convinced myself that if I looked at every detail, including the most painful ones, they would arrange themselves into a constellation of him. Maybe that’s part of why I’m not driven to handle this story in the same way—I’ve already written an investigative memoir, wringing every detail I could out of letters, journals, and interviews, trying to conjure my father back to life. I’ve already reached the end of that road and found myself still alone, my father still dead.

“God and Starbucks: An NBA Superstar’s Journey Through Addiction and Recovery”

Bryony puts her family, career and future at risk before a stint in rehab, loads of AA meetings and self-discovery help her to become a mother, partner and person she can be proud of. Ditlevsen’s failure of nerve, causing her to wrap up three volumes of the most trenchant and unillusioned autobiography ever written with a feeble daydream, is easily explained. She surely felt the reader (and perhaps the author) had endured too much pain in the preceding story to be sent away without solace. 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.

Whoopi Goldberg’s ‘Bits and Pieces’ Memoir Details Her Past Drug Addiction and Famous Friendships

And for the first time ever, I started writing, because all those feelings I pushed down wanted a voice. All that childhood trauma needed best addiction memoirs more than AA and talk therapy to heal. So I gifted those feelings with written words, as did the writers I mention in my list.

As she grieved each loss, she questioned why, and realized the common thread between them was where they came from. Living in poverty in the South in a racist country takes its toll, and for Ward, it is gutting. Like Hepola, I loved the excitement of the whole bar scene, and quite often, drank until I blacked out.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

These essays are relevant for all who strive to craft a better version of themselves. I remember when I first saw this title, I wished I had thought of it myself. Though mine may have been, Girl Walks Into https://ecosoberhouse.com/ a Bar and Stays Way Too Long. Another memoir by a woman who excelled professionally, as she hid her alcohol and coke addictions from herself and others, until it got so bad she couldn’t hide it anymore.

Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher

• Here, we dig into some of the most influential memoirs of all time.
• Like Hepola, I loved the excitement of the whole bar scene, and quite often, drank until I blacked out.
• Anyone who loves Blackman’s books will find her life story fascinating.
• And she had an almost miraculous ability to portray her broken family with wit and love, without ever flinching from pain.

There are vital historical texts, like The Diary of Anne Frank, or Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, that are almost memoir but not quite — the pieces of a diary and the stories of someone else, respectively. The final audiobook on this list is another powerful work of fiction. Only he has no recollection of how he got there—and he’s not sure he wants to remember either. Accomplished actor MacLeod Andrews narrates Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s powerful, beautifully written novel.

Familiar stories, new perspectives—15 classics refreshingly retold by side characters

It’s an exciting time for the genre, says Natasha Pulley, bestselling author of The Mars House. Through her five contemporary favourites, she explores how human emotion – including romantic love and friendship – elevates the best sci-fi novels, creating stories with realism and depth. Only a handful of the addiction memoirs of recent decades are also, in my view, singular works of art. 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.

Blackout by Sarah Hepola

Offering an easy-to-grasp explanation of the brain and addiction, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts promotes compassionate self-understanding as a pillar of health and healing. Former “20/20” anchor Elizabeth Vargas shares her story of anxiety and alcohol use disorder in this compelling memoir. Between Breaths reveals how she lived in denial and secrecy for years before finally entering rehab and a life of sobriety. James went to my college, Denison University, and is friends with many of my friends, so I loved reading the parts that took place (“fictionally”) in Granville, Ohio. This is one of the first books I read about addiction ever, before I realized I had a problem. This was the first book I read on this subject, and I instantly could relate to her feelings.