In addition to authoring two books (her second comes out March 2023), McKowen hosts the Tell Me Something True podcast. Ahead, see the 15 stories of struggle, failure, recovery, and grace that have moved us the most. We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Access State-Specific Provider Directories for detailed information on locating licensed service providers and recovery residences in your area.

“Blackout” by Sarah Hepola

Kao Kalia Yang’s The Late Homecomer, detailing her family’s escape from war in Laos, holds a place on my list of all-time favorite memoirs. The Song Poet focused on the story of her father, a song poet and Hmong refugee. Now, in Where Rivers Part, she shares the story of her mother Tswb, who fled genocidal violence, lived in a refugee camp, and helped her family find and build a new home in the U.S. Yang keeps readers as close as possible to Tswb’s perspective, treating her history and hardships with care. Where Rivers Part is a sensitive, unforgettable account of one mother’s immeasurable strength and love for her family. I love Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing for many reasons, one being that it consistently surprises me—I don’t always know where we’re going, but I feel lucky to be along for the trip.

Best Non-Fiction Books About Alcohol Recovery

Anne Frank’s diary is an uncomfortable best alcoholic memoirs look at humanity that all should read. As you know, Frank and her family hid from the Nazis during World War II—a story that’s now immortalized in book form. You may have covered Halfway house this in high school, but it’s always worth a reread. The Glass Castle spent more than seven years on the New York Times Bestseller list, so you know it’s a can’t-miss. Reading great addiction memoirs about recovery can give you hope and remind you that you’re not alone.

This Naked Mind by Annie Grace

A 1996 bestseller, Caroline Knapp paints a vivid picture of substance use and recovery that every reader can appreciate, whether you struggle with substance use or not. Knapp writes elegantly about her 20+ years of ‘high-functioning drinking’. Winning career accolades by day and drinking at night, Knapp brings you to the netherworld of alcohol use disorder. A captivating story of a highly accomplished well-known professional in the spotlight who was brave enough to share her story. best alcoholic memoirs Elizabeth Vargas takes off her perfectly poised reporter mask and shows you the authentic person behind the anchor desk. She shares her personal lifelong struggle with anxiety, which led to excessive substance use, rehab, and her ultimate triumph into recovery.

• Ann Dowsett Johnston combines in-depth research and her own story of recovery in this important book about the relationship between women and alcohol.
• I chose Atlas of the Heart because it touches on the important theme of second chances.
• That dissonance is at the core of her 2020 book of essays, which documents her own upbringing as the daughter of Korean immigrants and her musings on the current state of race in America.
• Healing Neen provides a personal look into the connection between incarceration, substance use, and trauma.

Best quit lit guides

In an interview conducted while she was at work on the memoir, Aron said, “There’s this long history of, often women, living alongside this disease. At a young age, she became both protector and cop to her sister, who was addicted to drugs. After leaving home, marrying, and having a child, she reconnects with a charismatic man from her past, and the two begin an obsessive drug-filled affair that perpetuates a cycle of enabling and mutual destruction. Aron uses this as a springboard to talk about the psychology of codependency and even the roots of the temperance movement. The third in a memoir trilogy that includes the critically acclaimed The Liars’ Club and Cherry, Lit introduces Mary Karr as a full grown woman, poet, wife, and mother struggling with alcoholism.

• As you embark on a sobriety or moderation journey, building a toolkit to keep you motivated and inspired can help you reach your goals.
• Self-understanding is therefore key to recovery, he contends, and fills the book with positive solutions addicts can apply to themselves.
• I really liked this book because it focuses a lot on her spiritual crisis and how it related to her alcoholism.
• Learn which signs to look out for, and how to care for your well-being.
• Most are forgettable and forgotten, but some accomplished authors—like Caroline Knapp and Sarah Hepola—have created very good books by bringing real skill to the standard formula.

• The basic premise of this book is that she is letting us peek into her diary during her first year of sobriety.
• It is easy to use addiction as a crutch, a way to build plot or signal “here’s a bad dude,” but it is much harder to accurately and humanely depict the life-warping pain of struggling with alcoholism.
• For readers who’ve followed her over three searingly honest books, where survival let alone redemption often seemed unlikely, her final discovery of a bruised and hard-won peace feels like an instance of what can only be called grace.
• She discusses her struggle with self-esteem, the controlling relationship she had with Burt Reynolds, and even her own childhood experience of sexual assault.

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. 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.