Recovery Memoirs

Grit Over Shame is the raw, inspiring true story of David A. Douglas — a man who rose from the chaos of addiction, incarceration, and personal wreckage to build a life of purpose, recovery, and service. From a turbulent childhood in Tacoma to a spiral into methamphetamine use in the 1990s, David’s journey is one of deep lows, powerful turning points, and the long road back.

With dark humor, and in crystalline prose, Clune's account of life inside the heroin underground is like no other. Whisking us between the halves of his precarious double life-between the streets of Baltimore and the college classroom, where Clune is a graduate student teaching literature-we spiral along with him as he approaches rock bottom: from nodding off in a row house with a one-armed junkie and a murderous religious freak to having his life threatened in a Chicago jail while facing a felony possession charge.

From the creator of the blog Renegade Mothering, Janelle Hanchett's forthright, darkly funny, and ultimately empowering memoir chronicling her tumultuous journey from young motherhood to abysmal addiction and a recovery she never imagined possible. Pregnant at 21 by a man she'd known three months, Janelle Hanchett embraced motherhood with the determined optimism of the recklessly self-confident. After giving birth, she found herself bored, directionless, and seeking relief in wine, which she justified as sophisticated and going well with chicken.

The story of a young girl's entrapment in gambling addiction. The true advert for problem gambling and how it controlled her every movement, her every thought and almost took her life. How the guilt and shame that go hand-in-hand with addiction stopped her from reaching out for help for eight years as she didn't feel it was okay for a young female to be a problem gambler. How she believed it was a male dominated problem, and how eventually, she did find the tools that enabled her to become free of her addiction.

A pediatric oncologist and palliative care physician Dr. Adam B. Hill suffers stress and disillusionment with the culture of medicine. It led him to alcoholism, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Then, while in recovery, he loses a mentor to suicide, revealing the extent of the burnout epidemic in the medical field.

With three children under five, a set of twins and a newborn, Rachell Brownell wanted to feel like an adult again. So she turned to three bottles of white wine a night. Through wit and honesty, Brownell lets listeners into her world of addiction, but also towards hope. Through examples of community, wisdom, and support, this book provides a map for anyone trying to get through the early stages of recovery.Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore.

Sober Stick Figure is a memoir from stand-up comedian Amber Tozer, chronicling her life as an alcoholic - starting with her first drink at the age of seven - and her eventual recovery. Amber writes about the crazy and harsh truths of being raised by alcoholics, becoming one herself, stagnating in denial for years, and finally getting sober.

When David LaChapelle begins attending Carleton University everything seems to be going in the right direction. But he begins experiencing unexplainable changes in his thought processes which eventually devolves into a full-blown psychotic state. He tries to get help but is turned down, told by the admitting physician that he is fine and not in need of psychiatric care. Not until his family steps in and takes him to the hospital does he come close to receiving any treatment. While there, however, he meets Angela, a fellow patient he will later learn is also suffering from schizophrenia. For...

This audiobook is Nick Carter's autobiography and self-help hybrid, in which he chronicles his struggles with a dysfunctional family and the unimaginable rigors of becoming an internationally successful pop-star at the age of 12. From his battle with addiction to serious health complications and the pain of his younger sister's tragic death, Nick leaves nothing to the imagination and offers true and heartfelt advice to help listeners overcome obstacles in their own lives.

The incidence of addiction has become a major concern for many countries of the world. Youths and adults alike are being destroyed every day by this demon creeping quietly into their lives while we look on having practically nothing to do. I have observed that the solution to this global challenge is not in medical sciences or psychology. The solution is in the name of Jesus. Why do we have many people who made resolutions every year to quit drinking, drugs and other social vices but still find themselves in it after few days? The fact is that they are being held by a power stronger than ...

On the surface, Cameron Douglas had everything: descended from Hollywood royalty (son of Michael Douglas, grandson of Kirk Douglas), he was born into a life of wealth, privilege, and comfort. But by the age of thirty, he had become a drug addict, a thief, and—after a DEA drug bust—a convicted drug dealer sentenced to five years in prison, with another five years added while he was incarcerated.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. (Revelation 12:11) Are you battling demons from your past? Feeling bound by the shackles of shame? Do you long to break free from bondage? Kelsey Decker’s memoir is Mary Magdalene meets Damascus Road. A poetic story written for God’s glory. These pages are filled with love, loss, grief, trauma, and abuse. They also overflow with God’s mercy and grace. It’s shocking, intriguing, and beautiful. She is an overcomer of impossible odds, freed from addictions, prostitution, cult abuse, New Age beliefs, ...

As a forensic psychiatrist, it's Dr Das' job to treat and rehabilitate what the tabloids might call the 'criminally insane', many of whom assault, rob, rape and even kill. His work takes him to high-security prisons and securely locked hospital wards across the country, as well as inside courtrooms, giving evidence as an expert witness.

John Walker was a Miami undercover narcotics agent in the 1970s. Ten years later, he was in prison for smuggling 12,000 pounds of marijuana. In prison, he connected with a South American drug lord who was still running the family operation from inside the federal pen. Within months of being paroled, John began smuggling again—this time uncut Colombian cocaine. And this time, he put everything on the line: his freedom, his family and, ultimately, his life.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey's best-known work, is an account of his early life and opium addiction, in prose that is by turns witty, conversational, and nightmarish.

"The first chance I got, I bought my very first bag of crystal methamphetamine... A monster was born. Try as I might, there is simply no way for me to minimize the impact with which crystal meth slammed into my life, at least not without straying far from the truth. It was like throwing a forty-pound sledge hammer though a plate glass window. What a cunning thing this was that lived inside of me. How could I ever hope to win against it? My good intentions meant nothing what I lacked was power."

William didn't know something was missing until it happened. He'd been in recovery for alcohol and drugs for years. He was a recovery activist and a spokesperson for the gold standard of treatment and recovery organizations. He was a model leader and follower of Twelve Step programs. But, still, he slipped. Privately, he was addicted to painkillers while publicly saying he was in recovery from alcohol and drug use. How did it go so wrong? With brutal honesty and introspection, William shares what happened after sobriety—after he'd published his memoir.

There wasn't one major reason that Kate Gunn decided to give up alcohol, more a few minor ones. She had an inkling that alcohol was holding her back from getting on top of her life. Plus the hangovers were getting worse. No longer just a dull headache throughout the day. At the worst times, entire weekends wiped out by one fun night she could hardly remember.

The Daughter of a Junkie: A True Love Story narrates a firsthand account of an extraordinary young girl who escaped the ghetto trappings and trickery of the underserved and impoverished communities in which she lived. With sheer determination, Terrinee realized her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer and a judge. She takes you through the slums of the Deep South with appalling near-death experiences that started in kindergarten and continued to "The Promise Land" on the college campus of Clark Atlanta University.

Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands chronicles the turbulent years Roosevelt spent as a rancher in the Badlands of Dakota Territory, following the sudden deaths on February 14, 1884, of his wife, two days after giving birth, and of his mother. Grief-stricken - and driven by doubts about his career after failed attempts as a reformer fighting political corruption -the young, Harvard-educated New York politician left his infant daughter in his sister's care and went to live on a Badlands ranch he had bought a year earlier.