Please seek professional care if you believe you may have a condition. Finally, I sought out books that helped me to better understand the human condition, including my own. Michael Matthews has a knack for making complex subjects easy to understand.

Among them, literature supporting recovery from alcohol abuse, often referred to as “quit lit,” is a popular choice for informative support within the recovery community. The story follows Carr’s unbelievable arc through addiction, recovery, cancer, and life as a single parent to come to an understanding of what those dark years meant. At the age of 15, Cat Marnell began to unknowingly “murder her life” when she became hooked on the ADHD medication prescribed to her by her psychiatrist father. Written by addiction counselor Genia Calvin, this book offers a helpful resource for teaching children about substance use and addiction in a format that’s easy to understand. This book includes three fictional short stories that aim to help readers better understand the perspectives of people living with severe substance use disorders. Writer Melissa Broder became known through her Twitter account @sosadtoday.

Finding Help for Co-Occurring Disorders in South Florida

Porter breaks down the chemistry behind alcoholism in an easy to understand format that includes psychological and physiological components to addiction. Ultimately, Alcohol Explained helps you understand your relationship with alcohol consumption and why so many continue to drink despite wishes to quit. Have you noticed that our world is increasingly obsessed with drinking?

• And according to Ellis, REBT offers an alternative by teaching people new methods to challenge unwanted or unhelpful thoughts and beliefs and replace them with more helpful ones.
• Creating healthy boundaries is one of the most useful practices we can put into place in early sobriety.
• I love this book because it showcases the essential goodness of people.
• If you make your entire life about perpetual recovery from alcohol addiction, then alcohol will always be on your mind by default.

Opening a good book every night before bed was one of my first strategies for finding a replacement activity for drinking alcohol. A person of extraordinary intellect, Heather King is a lawyer and writer/commentator for NPR—as well as a recovering alcoholic who spent years descending from functional alcoholism to barely functioning at all. From graduating cum laude from law school despite her excessive drinking to languishing in dive bars, King presents a clear-eyed look at her past and what brought her out of the haze of addiction. For more books about alcoholism and addiction, check out this list of 100 must-read books about addiction. She started sneaking sips from her parents’ wine glasses as a kid, and went through adolescence drinking more and more.

I Love You, More: Short Stories of Addiction, Recovery, and Loss From the Family’s Perspective

ACOA is a program for children raised in dysfunctional homes primarily due to alcohol and drug use, although they address other concerns relating to abuse, trauma, neglect, etc. ACOA is a 12-step group, and members of ACOA will be around others who https://www.excel-medical.com/5-tips-to-consider-when-choosing-a-sober-living-house/ can relate and who have gone through similar experiences. Sure, it never feels good to raise your voice or tell your children no, and that feeling was a secondary thought to the initial instinct of stopping them and saying no to protect them.

This book is about a mom of three (and a former party girl) who started an anonymous blog about giving up alcohol. It also comes highly recommended by a number of websites, reviews and readers, with a large fan base. A stunning debut novel by a masterful writer telling the heartwrenching story of a young boy and his alcoholic mother, whose love is only matched by her pride.

The Big Picture of Alcohol Dependence

The good news is that regardless of the “root causes” of alcoholism, anyone with this disorder can decide to take control of their biochemistry, psychology, social influences, and spiritual development. It is a disorder that can be permanently resolved using the Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual model of recovery. The premise of this book is that every living creature has evolved to seek mind-alteration from the natural world around us. To deny the fact that we do so is to deny an essential part of our nature, not simply as human beings, but as evolutionary creatures with fundamental needs. Siegel makes a compelling and ridiculously well-researched case to stop the war on our intrinsic nature and to find safer alternatives to the toxic drugs that kill so many of us.

• Two books that we believe every parent of an addict should read in addition to those listed above and below the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
• Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a fascinating system for reprogramming behavior by altering cognitive associations.
• This book includes personal stories that let me know how others have overcome the same roadblocks as myself.
• However, I found that it offered subtle applications for combating groupthink of any kind.
• This AA Grapevine classic audiobook includes nine stories by AA members on how the Steps, Traditions and service cleared the way for a spiritual awakening.

Implicit memory is memory without recollection of the actual event. Here are some other books we believe will provide you with strong insight into addiction and the obstacles that both families and drug addicts face. Substance users and their families may be the least qualified people to read a self-help book and then go and try and fix a problem themselves. The substance user and their family will most likely read the material through a distorted lens. The meaning behind this comment is people with alcohol and drug addiction, and their affected families are their own worst enemy.

Henry Cloud and John Townsend do a great job of helping the reader regain control of their thoughts and opinions. Learning how to set healthy boundaries and relearning the word no can be very helpful for any family member of an addict or alcoholic. Whenever a toxic person, place, or thing enters your life, you have the choice and ability to reject it or accept it. Two books that we believe every parent of an addict should read in addition to those listed above and below the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Both do an outstanding job of providing insight into the problems of behavior and perception for the addict and alcoholic.

You’ll also find options for dessert drinks, frozen drinks, and holiday drinks without relying on sugar for flavor. Reading We are the Luckiest by Laura McKowen can quite possibly save your life. For anyone hiding in the shadows of shame, this book is a guiding light. 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. After finishing A Happier Hour, the bar was set high for future reads (no pun intended).