Recovery Memoirs

Angela Leigh Tucker had not expected death that day. Newlywed, thirty years old and a successful public relations professional, she and her husband were driving home when a semi-truck hurtled over the center-lane divider and crushed their SUV. Her husband died on impact. She was left hanging onto life by a thin, golden thread. With her brain severely injured and her neck, shoulder, and ribs broken, she had instantly lost everything but her will to live.

All I ever wanted was to be loved and accepted. That's all. Now I am strung out on heroin, more vulnerable than ever, and clinically depressed. My entire existence is controlled by heroin and the need to escape reality. My rationality is being dominated, paralyzed, and defeated by another entity.

I am Carrie Carlisle, and if you have two hours to listen to this book, you're about to go on a journey with me that will finally free you from binge drinking and hangovers, permanently.

With Out of the Ashes: A Story of Recovery and Hope, Sallie Crotty offers a profoundly moving memoir told with unflinching bravery and insight. Her compelling story explores a topic that affects us all: mental health. Detailing a mid-life descent into debilitating despair, she brings the listener on a deeply personal journey. She reveals her struggles, time spent in a psychiatric ward, and how lacking a clear diagnosis almost led to her death. She also describes how proper care and receiving the right diagnosis and treatment can provide hope, stability, and a path to happiness.

That day started like any other but by lunchtime, I was fighting for my very life. A stroke is like that. You don't see it coming. There was nothing to do but let nature take its course—no guarantee I'd live much less return to full health. So, be prepared to travel through the terror and frustration of paralysis to a place of peace and gratitude where life resides with hope.

Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland have each suffered significant, debilitating brain injury – one through rare disease and the medical interventions that followed, the other through deep childhood trauma.

Maybe I Don't Belong Here is a deeply personal exploration of the duality of growing up both Black and British, recovery from crisis and a rallying cry to examine the systems and biases that continue to shape our society. In this powerful and provocative account of a life lived after psychosis, critically acclaimed actor David Harewood uncovers devastating family history and investigates the very real impact of racism on Black mental health.

Alan Kaufman recounts with unvarnished honesty the story of the alcoholism that took him to the brink of death, the post-traumatic stress disorder that drove him to the edge of madness, and the love that brought him back. Son of a French Holocaust survivor, Kaufman was a drinker so mauled by his indulgences that it is a marvel he hung on long enough to get into recovery.

No one expects a catastrophic event to befall their family, especially on Christmas Day. One moment, life was normal, and in the next, our family was completely and forever changed when my husband, Mark, suffered four strokes. This book takes you on the rollercoaster journey of stroke recovery, both the physical and emotional aspects. We came through this with our faith in God strengthened thanks to our family, friends, and neighbors who surrounded us in love and prayer.

The war on drugs has been official American policy since the 1970s, with the UK, Europe and much of the world following suit. It is at best a failed policy, according to best-selling author Antony Loewenstein. Its direct results have included mass incarceration in the US, extreme violence in different parts of the world, the backing of dictatorships and surging drug addiction globally. And now the Trump administration is unleashing diplomatic and military forces against any softening of the conflict.

On her journey to near stardom in the music business, Monica Madrid wound up a broke, demoralized alcoholic. Through the twists and turns of a colorful life, she rubbed elbows with Prince, Rick James, and other artists and was in a musical battle with Tupac Shakur. She came close to fulfilling her childhood dream, but once it was stripped from her grasp, her path led to money, prestige - and broken relationships. Monica's story is one of loss, love, and redemption.

The new face of risky drinking is female. The problem: a global epidemic of bingeing. The solution: a brave new approach to female recovery. Eight years ago, Ann Dowsett Johnston was an award-winning journalist and vice-principal of McGill University. In private, she was wrestling the demon that had undone her own mother; the same demon increasing numbers of women are now battling across the world: alcohol.

Told in his inimitable style, Karma will reflect on Boy George's life as a kid growing up in sixties London, through the hedonism of the seventies and the glam rock and punk rock revolution that birthed Culture Club, and the heydays of the nineties meeting musical legends like David Bowie, Madonna and Prince - as well as addressing all those rumours. The book will reveal the highs and lows of love, loss, addiction, recovery, prison, and celebrity on Boy George's journey through fame to finally embracing the man and artist that he is today.

In this deeply moving and resourceful memoir, beloved actor-director and New York Times best-selling author Joe Pantoliano takes aim at the stigma attached to what he calls “brain dis-ease” by writing candidly and humorously about his own journey through clinical depression and addiction.

A young boy, Duffy, watches helplessly as his father drinks himself to death, prompting him to vow that he will never, ever be like his father. But when Duffy is a young man, he has become exactly like his father and desperately struggles to find a way to a life worth living. This gripping memoir is an intimate journey from the perils of trying to survive in an insanely dysfunctional home to becoming a drunken, drug-addled tornado blowing through the lives of others, while laying waste to his own.

Follow a caring woman's unrelenting journey from the valleys of addiction, homelessness, jail, institutions, and near death experience -to the mountaintop of redemption. This memoir provides the listener with practical and proven tools, like the 4C Formula, that supports the listener in developing a voice and vision for their life.

This is a story of my personal journey through alcoholism and recovery. The events in my life that lead to abusing substances, and becoming an alcoholic/addict. I have an addiction to alcohol. I am not able to drink "in moderation" and I have found my path with the help of a step program and therapy. I am sharing my personal journey in hopes to reach others and assure them they are not alone and there is help. A lot of help out there. I hope you find freedom from whatever ails you, and I hope you enjoy.

From her earliest days, Sanz was the easily forgotten stranger, always a little out of sync with the rest of the world—a tough but naïve kid and aspiring writer. Her triumph over illness and addiction includes amusing anecdotes and nostalgic, heartwarming memories. Dive deeply into Sanz’s confessional self-sabotage, self-destruction, and the harrowing downward spiral she almost didn’t survive. Her never-before-told story ranges from recklessness and impudence to empathy, forgiveness, and love.

He was lost because of the addiction, broken from his past, and ashamed of the lifestyle he lived. An Injection of Faith: One Addict’s Journey to Deliverance, is a story of hope, love, and forgiveness from one man’s life with addictions. Author Anthony Ordille reveals his life of drugs and bar living, and how he found freedom from this crippling disease. He will walk you through the paths he took, how they ended, bring you through his years spent in recovery, and end with some of the happiest times he has experienced. Discover: What his childhood was like, how he dealt with his pain, ...

Jim Lucey has been working for more than 25 years with patients suffering from mental health problems. When people at their most vulnerable present to his room at St Patrick’s University Hospital, Dublin, they reveal their fears, traumas and very real human predicaments. Most of the assessments described in this audiobook took place in this room. While the patients’ stories are diverse, one common theme emerges - that of recovery.