Addiction Memoirs

A case study of millennial addiction that challenges society, values, rules and norms regarding relationships, sex, drugs and alcohol. Lock in and listen while generational stories are told to understand the onset of mental illness and the struggle of defending against addiction while trying to find purpose. From the top of potential to rock bottom reality, experience the highs and lows of recovery as surrender is accepted and a soul is found.

“The Devil Inside Me” is a gripping memoir by Joshua T. Berglan that offers an unflinching look into a life marked by addiction, betrayal, and the relentless quest for redemption. Berglan’s candid narrative reveals the depths of his struggles, including multiple incarcerations, bankruptcies, overdoses, and battles with HIV and homelessness. This powerful account delves into the consequences of living a double life and defying one’s true purpose. Berglan’s story serves as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of vulnerability and honesty. ...

Beginning innocently enough in his 20s, Neal Pollack discovers that pot makes everything - food, music, sex - better. Getting married, having a kid, and enjoying professional success didn't tamp down Pollack's addiction. As cannabis grew stronger and more widely available, Pollack's dependence was shadowed by the expansion and acceptance of the marijuana Big Business. Sober after joining a 12-step program, Neal outed himself publicly as a marijuana addict in a 2018 New York Times op-ed piece.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. His belly full of laughter, his life full of joy. Until one day, something changed; stripped his innocence away. The hole inside making space for the devil to come and play.

Dr. Carder Stout's clientele includes Oscar-, Golden Globe-, Emmy-, Tony- and Grammy-winners, best-selling authors, and billionaires. He may not be able to share their dark secrets, but for the first time, everyone will know his. At the age of 34, Carder would have gladly pawned the silver spoon he was born choking on for a rock of crack. His downfall was as swift as his privilege was vast - or had he been falling all along?

From an early age, Amber van de Bunt knew she wasn't like the other girls in town. From childhood struggles with depression and eating disorders, her years as a topless dancer in Florida, and an eventual abortion and suicide attempt, to her rebirth in Los Angeles as a porn star named Karmen Karma, overcoming her relationship with her abusive mother, and her struggle to maintain a clean and sober lifestyle - van de Bunt's life has been a roller coaster. With humor, alacrity, and profound insight, she reveals her deepest, darkest secrets and pulls no punches - least of all with herself.

In 1991, when he was 13 years old, Lenny Duncan stepped out of his house in West Philadelphia, walked to the Greyhound station, and bought a ticket - the start of his great American adventure. Today Duncan, who inspired and challenged audiences with his breakout first book, Dear Church, brings us a deeply personal story about growing up Black and queer in the US. In his characteristically powerful voice, he recounts hitchhiking across the country, spending time in solitary confinement, battling for sobriety, and discovering a deep faith.

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

My whole world changed when I stepped inside the academy. Nothing is right about this place or the other students in it. Here I am, a mere mortal among gods...or monsters. I still can't decide which of these warring factions I belong to, if I belong at all. I only know the one thing that unites them is their hatred of me. Then there's Jaxon Vega. A vampire with deadly secrets who hasn't felt anything for a hundred years.

Heroin is a Beast, and that Beast has infiltrated every town and city in America. The Beast has come for your sons and daughters. The Beast is hunting for your fathers and mothers. And that Beast has only one mission, to bury as many Americans as possible. I Am a Heroin Addict is the story of how Ritchie Farrell survived a ten-bag-a-day heroin habit to become a best-selling author, WGA screenwriter, and recipient of the prestigious du-Pont-Columbia Award for excellence in journalism.

When Kerry Cohen reached her early 40s, she realized she had a drinking problem - just enough to blur the edges of her life that had become a monotony of working, carpooling the kids to school, and everyday distractions. What she also realized was that she wasn't the only one. Lush is a gripping memoir that examines Kerry's struggles with alcohol, a struggle that a rising number of middle-aged women are facing. Wonderfully poignant and relatable, Lush follows Kerry as she attempts to rediscover the awe in her life, leaving mistakes, regrets, and the bottle behind her.

Leaving behind a nightmarish college experience, 19-year-old Nicole and her best friend Eric escape their home of Bangor, Maine to start a new life in Boston. Fragile and scared, Nicole desperately seeks a new beginning to help erase her past. But there is something besides freedom waiting for her in the shadows - a drug that will make every day a nightmare.

Bryony Gordon is a respected journalist, a number one best-selling author and an award-winning mental health campaigner. She is also an alcoholic. In Glorious Rock Bottom Bryony opens up about a toxic 20-year relationship with alcohol and drugs and explains exactly why hitting rock bottom - for her, a traumatic event and the abrupt realisation that she was putting herself in danger, time and again - saved her life.

Not since the last American troops left Vietnam have we faced such a sudden vacuum in our foreign policy—not only of authority, but also of explanations of what happened, and what the future holds. Few analysts are better poised to address this moment than Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, intellectuals and critics whose work spans generations and continents.

There is no light without the dark At the end of the day, when the day is spent, there is only one thing to do: think. You know there's a problem. You know there's a very real, very likely, disaster ahead. But you ignore it. Or someone ignores it. Or, perhaps, you feel that nobody cares. Whatever the reason, hope is slim. Life is tough and drugs are tougher. But don't give in. There is a light amid the dark, and I will show it. Let me help you. Personally, let me guide you from a place I knew too well. Hopefully, to a place you'll embrace as well. What do you have to lose? Depression, Drugs...

Ever since getting sober a few years ago, Allison Hilborn-Tatro has been dedicated to achieving what she calls "radical stability" in her life. She’s up before five each morning and asleep by nine every night. Her days as a family therapist and mother to one good-natured Labradoodle are orchestrated down to the minute, with little room for anything unexpected to barge in and knock her off the wagon. That is, until the death of a neighbor she barely knew leaves her in possession of his two orphaned Shih Tzus.

Katie LeClair has finally settled down as the new doctor in Baxter, Michigan. After years of moving, schooling, and training, she wants nothing more than to find a place she can call home, and a small town outside of Ann Arbor seems perfect. Katie quickly gets to work in building a life for herself in Baxter, and beyond reviving her love life, she also finds a pair of business partners in a team of father and son family practitioners. But that idyllic dream is immediately shattered when one of her patients is found dead.

Here, Dr. Lawrence Peltz, who has worked as an addiction psychiatrist for more than two decades, draws from his clinical experience and on the techniques of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to explain the fundamental dynamics of addiction and the stages of the recovery process, and also gives us specific mindfulness exercises to support recovery.

This deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her 15-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction. Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen.

In her early 20s, investigative journalist Anna Mehler Paperny had already landed her dream job. On the surface, her life was great. Nevertheless, she spiraled out, attempted suicide (the first of more attempts to follow), and landed in the ICU and then in a psych ward before setting out to tackle her recovery. In Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me, Mehler Paperny turns her journalist's eye on her own experience and others' - in the ward; as an outpatient; facing family, friends, and coworkers; finding the right meds; trying to stay insured and employed.