Recovery Memoirs

Being crowned homecoming queen fast-tracked me to an identity crisis that catalyzed my disclosure of ten years of sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather. I dropped out of high school for the first half of my senior year while the disclosure was incinerated in my notorious stepfather's career-climbing kiln. I am recovering my authentic self from the rubble of losses amassed over years of enduring entirely narcissistic parents.

A music prodigy, head of her class, and well-liked in school, Emily Paulson decided early that embellishment paved the road to success. As she grew up, she figured out how to make the picture look even better - with a successful husband, five beautiful children, and all the required accompanying accoutrements. Then along came social media, where those pictures of the perfect life grew her a following of women who believed that everything about Emily was #blessed #inspo. But behind the filtered façade was a reality filled with trauma, addiction, and dysfunctional behavior.

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.

I am a heroin addict, and I will do anything - and I mean absolutely anything - to get my next fix. Nothing else matters at this point. I would rather die than be dope sick in jail again.

As chronicled in his hit memoir Straight Pepper Diet, one fateful summer night, Joseph Naus, a young LA lawyer, went out to have just a couple of drinks. He awoke the next morning handcuffed to a hospital bed and charged with attempted murder. And then it got worse. The Palsgraf Revelation begins where Straight Pepper Diet left off. Joseph survived the initial blast of the nuclear bomb he dropped on his own life, but if he wants to become more than a shocking cautionary tale, he must now learn to live with the devastating fallout.

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.

After 24 years in healthcare, one fateful evening transformed Mandi from practitioner to patient. A motor vehicle accident left her with a significant traumatic brain injury that has taken her much longer than expected to recover from. Follow along as she shares her journey back from her worst day through the first year.

The Romeo & Juliet Delusion provides inspiration to anyone whose life has been touched by addiction or domestic violence. Abbott relies on raw and uninhibited storytelling to convey the methods she used to explore healing and freedom from trauma. Abbott's hope is that by authentically sharing her story, she can help to change the lives of people in similar situations and inspire others to view addiction and domestic abuse with compassion and curiosity.

Rich's life is spiraling out of control. Consumed by addiction to alcohol, opioid prescription drugs, and gambling, his attempts to drown out the darkness and reality of a troubled childhood will lead to unimaginable trials for his family. His wife, Sue, struggles to help him, but fears all hope is lost. In an instant, a horrific diagnosis after a sudden traumatic brain injury could end it all.

Nearly every American knows someone who has been affected by the opioid crisis. Addiction is a trans-partisan issue that impacts individuals from every walk of life. Millions of Americans are tired of watching their loved ones die while politicians ignore this issue. Where is the solution? Where is the hope? Where's the outrage? Ryan Hampton understands firsthand how easy it is to develop a dependency on opioids, and how destructive it can quickly become. Now, he is waging a permanent campaign to change our way of thinking about and addressing addiction in this country.

After years of working as an image-obsessed actress in Hollywood, Roxanne finds herself at rock bottom from a disease that is anything but glamorous. In her first year of recovery, Roxanne has to take accountability for her past. From tales of being mistaken for a prostitute at the Hotel Bel-Air to botching a threesome attempt with an A-list celebrity, she must face the truth about herself and stop playing the victim.

When the police and FBI exhaust their abilities and options, and when grieving families run out of resources, their last best hope has been an Idaho couple who have spent their retirement years pursuing lost causes—and have located 130 victims from lakes and rivers across the United States and Canada. Gene and Sandy Ralston, a married Idaho couple in their mid 70s, are self-taught underwater search-and-recovery specialists who volunteer their time and equipment. And yet the Ralstons are counted among the best in the world.

Part memoir, part self-help guide, Suffer Well bridges the gap between lived experience and evidence-based solutions, offering hope and concrete strategies for those ready to change their lives. It's an essential listen for anyone interested in addiction recovery, endurance sports, personal transformation, or the remarkable possibilities that emerge when we choose to reshape our relationship with suffering.

She had big plans of becoming a country music star, but her life went in a different direction than her dreams. She developed an eating disorder early in life to gain a sense of control in her strict upbringing. As she continued to struggle with body image and her obsession with being perfect her entire adult life, she was also met with other difficult situations. Her husband and father of her two eldest daughters, Dallas and Demi, had his own troubles that effected the entire family. She coped with alcohol and pills, forming a long-lasting addiction.

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.

Like the never-ending war on terror, the drugs war is a multi-billion-dollar industry that won’t go down without a fight. Pills, Powder, and Smoke explains why. 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.

In the nineties, Ryan Dusick and his friends Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael dreamed about making it big . . . and against all odds, they did. This inside story recounts Maroon 5's founding and their road to becoming Grammy-winning megastars, told through the eyes of former drummer Ryan Dusick. He takes listeners behind the scenes of the band's meteoric rise to success—and the grueling demands that came with it—as well as his personal struggles with anxiety and addiction after his departure from the band.

Sometimes, we know shockingly little about the people we think we know best. Inspector Gil Hill, head of Detroit Homicide Division, was the first to explain my husband's twisted behavior to me. Hill bluntly disclosed that Al had led a double life for the previous 18 months in a red-light district in the inner city using the alias "Dr. Miller". He had frequently been seen in the company of a burly pimp and young prostitute and had been supporting their salacious lifestyle.

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.

When SPC Kayla Williams and SGT Brian McGough met at a mountain outpost in Iraq in 2003, only their verbal sparring could have betrayed a hint of attraction. Neither could have predicted the sequence of events that would shape their lives. Brian, on his way back to base after mid-tour leave, was wounded by a roadside bomb that sent shrapnel through his brain. Kayla waited anxiously for news and, on returning home, sought out Brian. The two began a tentative romance and later married, but neither anticipated the consequences of Brian’s injury on their lives.