11 Must-Read Books for Families of Drug Addicts

Books that focus on enabling and codependency are often recommended for parents of addicts. Al-Anon support groups and individual and marriage counseling can help parents. Dr. Mate does not appear to believe in the disease concept, and Pleasure Unwoven sets out to test whether or not it is. We won’t spoil the movie, and regardless of whether or not it is a disease, there are effective solutions to treating addiction. As you read through all the other counseling strategies that came after, you will find equal similarities.

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  • Since I don’t love the word “journey”, I prefer to think of it as a kind of endurance art, the term performance artists give to work that requires long periods of hardship, solitude or pain.
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In the end, sobriety is often described as a privilege rather than a chore. When author and Episcopal priest Erin Jean Warde quit drinking, she heard from many others in a similar situation seeking support. In Sober Spirituality, she combines personal storytelling with theological reflection to offer encouragement, wisdom, and practical insight for listeners who want to reexamine their relationship with alcohol. Warde explores the way our culture promotes alcohol consumption and shows how we can choose to change our perception of alcohol in our spiritual communities. I first read this book in high school, and revisited it after I quit drinking.

What are the 6 pillars of addiction?

Others have a hard time identifying with the family’s privileged lifestyle and Sheff’s approach to parenting. The memoir offers an in-depth exploration of the complexities of parent-child relationships amid substance use and addiction. Many reviewers found it a helpful tool in their recovery journey, and some people say it works well as a supplement to other AA books. This book reads like a conversation, and teaches us to get curious. Gilbert helps us understand the noisy voice in our head, which can often be our greatest critic. She offers generous vulnerability in her lessons and encourages you to find your gift within.

For instance, someone who wants a guide to follow may find an AA book helpful. But someone who doesn’t find AA appealing or helpful may prefer a book that explores substance use and addiction from a scientific perspective. Parents and teachers may find this book useful for guiding conversations about addiction and answering kids’ questions about people living with addiction. Writer Augusten Burroughs sought help for alcohol addiction when he felt he had no other option.

How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics

For every parent riddled with guilt, for anyone waking up in the shame cave (again), for every person who has had a messy struggle forward towards redemption… this book is for you. The question is, why are you waiting for the substance user to get to the bottom and want help when the family is already there? Waiting for the substance user leads to inaction, usually resulting in interventions more likely to punish them than help them recover. We can not stress enough the importance of doing something when children are being affected.

If you’re finding it hard to work through these steps, semi-anonymous authors give you practical tips on harnessing these steps, improving your character, and forging forward with long-term recovery. Allen is an expert in identifying and removing the psychological factors that lead to drinking. He shows why the benefits that individuals believe they receive from alcohol are fake. I really recommend this book to anyone who is battling with alcohol.

Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age

Dupuy explains many facets of recovery, including treatment plans, assessments, and approaches to relapse prevention, using anecdotes and examples from his own life as well as those of other addicts. In my own healing, I have even questioned the use of the word “recovery” in this context at all, since it implies a retrieval of something lost. Some new habits and practices have had to be built from the ground up. Dove “Birdie” Randolph is doing her best to be a perfect daughter.

Children are greatly affected, and Dr. Black understands the impact of them holding their true feelings inside and not talking about their feelings. If you know a child that could benefit from this book, we highly recommend that you have them go through it. Children of substance users and many substance users often act this way toward relationships with others. This is why we can’t stress enough that if a family doesn’t want to intervene with the substance user at least intervene in an attempt to help the substance user’s children. In addition to ACOA and Alateen, here are some book suggestions for young people and adults who can benefit from reading.

The point is the foundational message, vision, and solution of Alcoholics Anonymous cannot be completely avoided regardless of which method works for someone to achieve sobriety. As a child, Helaina Hovitz was a very close witness to the attack to the World Trade Center on 9/11. These events leave her with a serious case of PTSD that in turn throw her into despair and later lands her into addiction. When she looked around she couldn’t help but notice that she was very much not alone. Lush explores the ongoing addiction crisis amongst middle-aged females through Cohen’s lenses in a very relatable style. This is a darkly comic book about the slow road through recovery, really growing up, and being someone that gets back up after screwing up.

best alcohol recovery books

Her beloved habit of overdrinking and staying until bars closed, however, meant that her nights and the following mornings were also all about her regular blackouts. With beautiful prose, Miller’s memoir is about recovering from a lifetime of difficult relationships and a home situation that seems desperate at times. Still, there is redemption at the end of the road as best memoirs about addiction she details a complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, despite the odds. The emotional burden of her past eventually led her to attempt to take her own life. In this essay collection, Coulter writes with wit about a life in transition — and what happens when you suddenly look up and realize that maybe everyone else isn’t quite doing things the right way.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Whenever a toxic person, place, or thing enters your life, you have the choice and ability to reject it or accept it. More than a journey through addiction and recovery from it, this is a tale https://ecosoberhouse.com/ about how trauma shapes us, and how we can only free ourselves from its hold by facing it. It’s a testament to how one moment, completely out of our control, can drastically change our lives.

best alcohol recovery books

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