Addiction Memoirs

Gary Barlow is one of the most successful British musicians and songwriters of all time, but 15 years ago, as he himself admits, he hit rock bottom - he was out of shape, out of work, depressed. Food for him had become an addiction, a means not only of comfort but almost of self-medication as he grappled with the cruel twists of fate of musical stardom. In 2003, as he struggled with the disappointment of an underperforming solo career alongside the tireless media taunts; Gary turned to food.

"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."

Part Oz, Shawshank Redemption, and Orange Is the New Black, this true, warts-and-all, David vs. Goliath tale is about a journalist/addict/alcoholic whose five prison-mates ready him for the outside world, while taking on the prison industrial complex of 2018.

At the age of 15, Kelle Groom found that alcohol allowed her to connect with people and explore intimacy in ways she'd never been able to experience before. She began drinking before class, often blacked out at bars, and fell into destructive relationships. At 19, already an out-of-control alcoholic, she was pregnant. Accepting the heartbreaking fact that she was incapable of taking care of her son herself, she gave him up for adoption to her aunt and uncle. When he was nine months old, the boy was diagnosed with leukemia....

When Liz Fraser's partner fell into a catastrophic vortex of depression and alcoholism, Liz found herself in a relentless hailstorm of lies, loneliness and fear, looking after their young child on her own, heartbroken, mentally shattered and with no idea what was happening or what to do. As she and her family moved between Cambridge, Venice and Oxford, she kept the often shocking truth entirely to herself for a long time, trying in vain to help her partner find a path to sobriety, until she herself finally broke from the trauma and started to speak out.

Sixteen years ago Vin Baker was an NBA All-Star, an Olympic Gold medalist, and a multimillionaire. While he excelled on the court, Vin harbored a dark secret: a dependency on drugs and alcohol that began after the clean-cut preacher's son turned pro. Eventually becoming a full-blown yet functional alcoholic, Vin convinced himself he played better under the influence - until his addiction cost him his basketball career, his fortune, and his health. But Vin's story isn't a tragic fall from grace. It is a joyous tale of salvation.

When Susan Stellin asked Graham MacIndoe to shoot her author photo for an upcoming travel book, she barely knew him except for a few weekends with mutual friends at a summer house in Montauk. He was a gregarious, divorced Scotsman who had recently gotten sober; she was an independent New Yorker who decided to take a chance on a rough-around-the-edges guy. But their relationship was soon tested when Susan discovered that Graham still had a drug habit he was hiding.

Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her pulse-raising memoir. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.

Lynn grew up the carefree daughter of a Miami undercover narcotics agent—until her dad snuck out of the house in the dark of night without a glance back. She never knew what happened to her father until she was in high school, and he was in prison for drug smuggling. By then, Lynn had developed a dangerous drug and alcohol habit of her own. It was the perfect setup for her to latch onto the only connection to her dad that remained when he was paroled from prison—cocaine.

Carl Radke’s path from reality TV’s party-loving star to a life centered around recovery has been anything but straightforward. Famous for his role on Summer House, Carl’s journey in the spotlight has forced him to confront personal battles under public scrutiny. Beyond the cameras, he’s faced struggles with addiction, the weight of toxic masculinity, the heartbreaking loss of his brother and a quest to find real joy in a world that equates fun with alcohol.

Narrated by the author and the first of a two-book series, Free Fall is a true-life musical memoir; not about how one gets better, but how one gets sick and doesn't notice. The astonishing account of escaping addiction and rebuilding a life is shared in the second book of this series, Falling Up. Here, a grieving child becomes a legally emancipated teenage runaway and pursues a rock and roll dream – and gets close.

In 16 brilliantly observed true stories, Sam Harris emerges as a natural humorist in league with David Sedaris, Chelsea Handler, Carrie Fisher, and Steve Martin, but with a voice uniquely his own. Praised by the Chicago Sun-Times for his "manic, witty commentary", and with a storytelling talent the New York Times calls " New Yorker - worthy," he puts a comedic spin on full-disclosure episodes from his own colorful life. What better place to find painfully funny material than in growing up gay, gifted, and ambitious in the heart of the Bible belt?

The goal is 90. Just 90 clean and sober days to loosen the hold of the addiction that caused Bill Clegg to lose everything. With 73 days in rehab behind him he returns to New York and attends two or three meetings each day. It is in these refuges that he befriends essential allies including the seemingly unshakably sober Asa and Polly, who struggles daily with her own cycle of recovery and relapse. At first, the support is not enough: Clegg relapses for the first time with only three days left.

College football fans have welcomed Emmy Award-winning ESPN sideline reporter Lauren Sisler into their homes weekly since 2016. But the popular journalist known for asking insightful questions and for the viral videos dancing her signature “sideline shimmy” shielded a tragic secret behind her smile for nearly two decades: her mother and father died within hours of each other, victims of their hidden battle with prescription drug addiction.

Meg Wilson watched her world fall apart when her husband confessed years of sexual addiction. She has an intimate knowledge of all you may have felt-and she's lived to tell about it. With honesty and hopefulness, Meg uses her own story, along with other examples and Scripture, to help women cope and find their way out of the darkness of their husbands' sexual compulsions. She wants you to know that God's first concern is for your relationship with Him - not your circumstances.

One phone call. That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs's life forever.... Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance? In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation.

The author of this diary began journaling on her 16th birthday. She lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in Santa Monica with her mom, dad, and Berkeley-bound older brother. She was a good girl, living a good life...but one party changed everything. One party, where she took one taste - and liked it. Really liked it.

In this deeply moving and lyrical memoir, Hoppe shares an intimate, courageous account of what it means to truly interrupt cycles of harm. For fans of The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford, and Heavy by Kiese Laymon. During the first year of quarantine, drug overdoses spiked, the highest ever recorded. And Hoppe’s cousin was one of them. “I never learned the true history of substance use disorder in my family,” Hoppe writes. “People just disappeared.” At the time of her cousin’s death, she’d been in recovery for nearly four years, but she hadn’t told anyone.

The weird, wacky and wonderful betting exploits of an unconventional gambler who takes the biggest risk of his life to give up his day job and try to make a living on chance. The Gambler reveals the highs and lows, the joy and despair, and the sheer lunacy of someone willing to risk it all on the most outlandish outcomes, from betting on the winner of Eurovision and Strictly to whether a pair of pandas might mate.

Born to an abusive mother and a drug-dealer father, Ginelle Testa is not exactly set up for success—and her early years are just as troubled as one might expect. By the end of her thirteenth year, she’s started experimenting with alcohol and drugs, has fallen prey to anorexia, and has been sexually assaulted. And that’s only the beginning of her spiral down into addiction and disordered eating.