Best Christian Books for Alcohol and Drug Addiction

He was a US Senator, US representative and the Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in 1972. I included this book to point out that depression and addiction can happen to anyone. BrightView offers comprehensive outpatient treatment that can help you reclaim your life. Writes with a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion about his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his fourteen years of recovery. Of those who have had similar experiences can be an excellent compliment to treatment. Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive news and recommendations for mystery/thriller readers. Medical Daily offers links to items to help our readers find interesting products. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. According to an observational study, even moderate drinking contributes to cognitive decline. Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations.

What is wrong with someone who is always negative?

Negativity is often a product of depression or insecurity. It can stem from illness, life events, personality problems, and substance abuse. Like many things in life, negativity too, can become a habit. Frequent criticism, cynical thoughts, and denial can create neural pathways in the brain that encourage sadness.

Unexplained men and bruises the next morning are only a few of the unremembered experiences Sarah Hepola recalls in this honest, raw, poignant memoir. Finding that her creativity didn’t come from a bottle, she gets sober and finds a life she didn’t know she wanted. “The Sober Lush” is meant to be a road-map that outlines how to have a pleasant life without drinking. Written by Mackenzie Phillips, former star of the 70s sitcom One Day at a Time, “High on Arrival” is a 304 page autobiography published in 2009.

The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober: Discovering a Happy, Healthy, Wealthy Alcohol-Free Life by Catherine Gray

Many families do not see where or how they are controlling the situation. This control comes from maladaptive coping strategies intended to comfort themselves and not the substance user. The substance user benefits from the selfish acts of the family’s enabling and codependency. The family’s true intentions of enabling are for themselves and not the substance user. It is very simple to see what enabling, and codependency is doing for Sober House a substance user. It is far more difficult to see why the enabler is comforting the addict and what benefit it is providing the enabler. There are certain jobs that are simply more difficult; being an Emergency Room physician is certainly one of them. This may be why so many ER doctors get burned out or deal with addiction issues. For Dr. Remy, his job meant waking up one morning to find himself in rehab for alcohol use disorder.

  • Written for children between the ages of 5-12, Dr. Black reaches children with exercises that allow them to express their feelings.
  • Those endeavors work hand in hand with the positive intentions that McKowen had in publishing “We Are the Luckiest”, and it is very effective as a combination of autobiography and self-help, nonfiction literature.
  • Still, there is redemption at the end of the road as she details a complicated yet loving relationship with her parents, despite the odds.
  • That celebration threw her once again into the depths of alcoholism.

Marc Lewis is a neuroscientist with a personal history of opiate addiction, and this book is a masterpiece. Dr. Lewis sees addiction as a “phase of life” and individual preferences and desires as essentially malleable over time. Dr. Linus Pauling was the only scientist to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes, and this book is easily the best nutritional guide that I have read. While this book is not explicitly about recovering from alcoholism, the information is very relevant for people who want to repair their brains and bodies after conquering acute alcohol withdrawal. Julia Ross is a pioneer of nutrient therapy, and this book explains how basic nutrients can be used with great success to cure a number of mental health issues. Books such as this one do not deny the utility of prescription medications for patients who need them. The premise is simply that using nutrients that our bodies have evolved to use is a safer first approach for treating mood disorders. Jun 13, 2022 Addiction Resources Family Boundaries and Addiction Why are boundaries so important in addiction recovery?

Cómo dejar de beber alcohol [How to Stop Drinking Alcohol]

Early sobriety forces, like giving birth, a quick and complete break with a former life in order to make way for a new, sometimes ambiguously desired one. The book ends on a hopeful bottom, where Don is clear-eyed and ready to give not drinking another chance. It is the new day that every drunk faces each time they quit again. Today, some of my favorite works of fiction are those which manage to portray the complex multitudes of ways in which alcoholism affects people—not just the addicts themselves, but their friends, family, and co-workers. 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. The books which do it best, in my opinion, are often not consciously “about” addiction at all, but show its effects lingering in the corners of every page. I am, probably, by way of my history, more attuned to picking up on it than others. Online sobriety groups and local resources are both key resources to stop drinking. Searching for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, free to all, in one’s area is a good place to start. Speaking to loved ones, and explaining one’s problem, can also be a valuable means to find help and achieve recovery.
best alcohol addiction books
Holly Whitaker, in her own path to recovery, discovered the insidious ways the alcohol industry targets women and the patriarchal methods of recovery. Ever the feminist, she found that women and other oppressed people don’t need the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous, but a deeper understanding of their own identities. Quit Like a Woman is her informative and relatable guidebook to breaking an addiction to alcohol. She thought the normal people who could drink casually were lucky. She wasn’t self-medicating and was able to truly feel her feelings and live honestly. We Are the Luckiest is a life-changing memoir about recovery—without any sugarcoating. At Port St. Lucie Hospital, we specialize in individualized, holistic therapies that address the whole person. Our programs extend beyond mental illness treatment to detox and dual diagnosis, which combines addiction treatment with mental health therapies.

Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction by Erica Garza

From David’s own point of view, the 288 page book is very personal, with a wit, humor, and honesty that makes it a very accessible approach towards one person’s battle with addiction. Rausing, the editor of Granta and heiress to a Swedish beverage-packaging fortune, writes beautifully of the idyllic seaside summers of her 1970s childhood and the heavy bonds of family. She does not recover in any straightforward way from worry, obsession, or attempts to control her brother or – obviously – the narrative, but she makes her way towards a kind of best alcohol addiction books serenity. Provides insight and meaning to the adult child of an alcoholic and addict. Tony is the Co-Founder of ACOA and provides insight into a child’s struggles while raised in a dysfunctional home. The book’s authors do a great job of helping the reader understand how their experiences have profoundly impacted the affected person’s relationships with others. The other group is ACOA, which stands for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. As we stated above, alcoholics are addicts, and their drug of choice is alcohol.
best alcohol addiction books
The nice part about the book is it encourages detachment and helps families understand the need to take their lives back and enjoy it. Letting the addict take you down with them is not something this book suggests. As we believe and as the book suggests, you may not have control over the addict directly, and you do have control over how you cope, react, and treat yourself concerning your loved one’s addiction. There are countless memoirs about addiction and recovery, but not quite so many about stopping drinking and its aftermath. When author Kristi Coulter stopped drinking, she began to notice the way that women around her were always tanked, and how alcohol affected those around her. Lisa Najavits discusses the effects that past trauma has on a person’s addiction. This is an inspirational book that provides real-life examples of developing coping mechanisms and realistic goals that lead to a healthier life.

She started sneaking sips from her parents’ wine glasses as a kid, and went through adolescence drinking more and more. By the time she was an adult in a big city, all she did was drink. Blackout is her poignant story of alcoholism and those many missing hours that disappeared when she had just enough to drink to wipe out her memory. Hepola gets through the darkest parts of her story with self-deprecating humor and a keen eye on what she was burying by drinking. Jack Canfield and Dave Andrews’ The 30-Day Sobriety Solution presents a sensitively written yet no-nonsense guide to help you cut back or quit drinking entirely in the privacy of your own home. It is organized into 5 phases that span 30-day periods and guides you through each day with practical exercises that allow you to more easily make positive choices that lead you towards recovery. In this honest discussion of mental health, the founder of Therapy for Women explores our reasons for drinking alcohol – and the benefits of taking a break…. As a pastor, I often get asked what my must-have Christian books are. Not only does it help me grow in my relationship with God, but I also broaden and deepen my knowledge, reduce stress and create time for contemplation.

We believe one of the best books to provide insight into the family system that works against a solution to addiction is the S.A.F.E. Intervention & Family Recovery Coaching guide. Developed by Family First Intervention, S.A.F.E. is the acronym for Self Awareness & Family Education. The book is about addictive behaviors, manipulations, and the unhealthy family roles that develop to balance dysfunction. We hope that the reader will see things differently and apply the suggested solutions to help improve the situation. As you re-feel the event, you become angrier with every passing thought. When a child cannot discuss what is going on at home, it has a profuse effect on their brain development and ability to form healthy relationships and bonds. The resentments that develop for young children can lead them to substance use themselves and unhealthy choices in relationships. The sooner you can get in front of a child affected by substance use, the less damage may be done. Alateen is part of Al-Anon and focuses on young people who need help affected by addiction. Addiction can profoundly affect children, and the quicker they get into Alateen and individual therapy, the greater the opportunity for them to understand what is going on with themselves and the substance user.

Letting Go of the Thief: A Ninety Day Journey Inside the Thoughts of an Alcoholic by Pamela D. Pesta

She spent many years on the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. This is not a long book, but it does cover how to be happy with ourselves. It can help change how we all feel about the expectations placed on us. We are all important and are put on this earth for a specific reason. Maia Szalavitz shares a new perspective on the addictive personality.
best alcohol addiction books
Alcoholism, or the inability to control drinking due to a physiological and cognitive/emotional dependence on the substance, affects many adults today. According to a survey done in 2018, 14.4 million adults ages 18 and older had alcohol use disorder . AUD can lead to serious health issues for the individual and alcoholism’s impact on family and relationships can be devastating. Often, when we think of books about addiction and specifically alcoholism , we think of important, tell-all works of nonfiction. Memoirs like Sarah Hepola’s Blackout, Augusten Burroughs’ Dry, and Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska are recent, searing examples of first person accounts of being drunk and then, eventually, being sober.
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