Recovery Memoirs

At the heart of Tolkienian fantasy is "recovery," a "cleaning of the windows" of our perception that we may learn to see the world again in all its strange beauty. And, for Tolkien, to recover the world anew is to recover a sense of the world as a meaningful act of creation by a living and loving Creator. How does Tolkien accomplish this? Through "sub-creation" or mythopoeia, the "fashioning of myth." For it is in creating an imaginary world ourselves through poetry, fairy-story, and myth that we come to "see" our "primary world" as itself an act of creation.

After struggling with anxiety and depression during her formative years, Margy turned to alcohol to self-medicate and quieten her inner turmoil. Through two failed marriages and fractured relationships, a teaching career spanning 32 years, and two children, Margy finally kicked the wine witch to the curb and found her own voice.

It is my absolute pleasure to add my own personal emotional tone as I read to you my story of redemption from trauma and addiction. "At the tender age of six, Mark Turnipseed received what he felt was a clear and devastating message: It isn't okay to like other boys, and if you do, you're bound for Hell. His confusion and self-hatred made him determined to become the boy he believed he was supposed to be, but in attempting to live a lie, he descended into a hell of his own making.

If you thought sailing the world is an endless holiday of bikinis and martinis, get ready for a bucket-list adventure of a lifetime! Gripping true stories open a window into the liveaboard lifestyle and complex challenges of blue water sailing—where simple decisions have real-life consequences and where the most provocative obstacles live inside a sailor's soul. If you are intrigued by an escape from the ordinary, come aboard as a sailor and two seadogs discover exactly what it’s like to live life sideways. Living Life Sideways Prequel – The Departure Seduced by the sea and enchanting...

With an audacious persistence to reclaim her life, Tia set off on a 15-year path to psychological health. The result is an emotionally regulated, actualized, self-aware woman able to tell her hard story without retraumatizing herself, a woman able to reach a hand back to help others claim what’s theirs. If trauma took your past, it shouldn’t get your present and future too. Through a series of personal stories, therapeutic stages, and resources built around a multi-step model, Tia Levings will guide you through the journey that helped her leave abuse, rediscover selfhood, and heal her mind.

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.

Often misdiagnosed and misunderstood, traumatic brain injury (TBI) may be a life-altering event that can produce a wide range of symptoms affecting physical as well as psychological health. Now, a physician shares her personal journey with TBI after suffering a life-changing accident. In this touching and informative book, Dr. Chrisanne Gordon chronicles her struggles - the high points as well as the lows - as she is challenged to make sense of what happened and realizes that her medical training did not prepare her for these struggles.

In 2017, at the age of 62, the writer and filmmaker Stephen Trombley left his native America for a simpler life in rural France. He found a little place in the southwest, but after only five months, he was struck down by a stroke that left his right arm paralyzed and his brains scrambled. While he was in hospital, his relationship failed. Alone, broke, and with only a schoolboy’s grasp of the language, Trombley found himself completely dependent on the French medical system. As soon as he was able, Trombley started keeping a diary, recording his long and painful journey.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is a graphic, honest, autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its profound effect on his life. Confessions was the first major work De Quincey published and the one which won him lasting fame. This intensely riveting audiobook edition is therefore a must for all those interested in the pharmacological arts, altered states, the pitfalls of addiction, and the age-old quest for expanded consciousness.

Told in his inimitable style, Karma will reflect on Boy George's life as a kid growing up in sixties London, through the hedonism of the seventies and the glam rock and punk rock revolution that birthed Culture Club, and the heydays of the nineties meeting musical legends like David Bowie, Madonna and Prince - as well as addressing all those rumours. The book will reveal the highs and lows of love, loss, addiction, recovery, prison, and celebrity on Boy George's journey through fame to finally embracing the man and artist that he is today.

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.

After Bill had accumulated significant sobriety a celebratory dinner was held in New York City at which Bill gave an AA talk. (Bill drank for 17 years and staying sober for an 17 years was a notable milestone not only to him but to Lois as well.) Bill talks about the role that Ebby played in getting Bill interested in sobriety and the role of Doctor Silkworth in helping him stay sober.

Sanity: Lost & Found is a memoir that unfolds like a novel. Using the story of the author's life as the backdrop, she offers a better understanding of how our childhood experiences impact us, how we become shame-based, and what can happen when we do, and how resiliency, compassion, and forgiveness are what it takes to heal from the vicissitudes we all face in life.

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.

In this deeply moving and resourceful memoir, beloved actor-director and New York Times best-selling author Joe Pantoliano takes aim at the stigma attached to what he calls “brain dis-ease” by writing candidly and humorously about his own journey through clinical depression and addiction.

Precisely plotting the slippery slope of a heroin addict's existence, The Hummingbird Kiss paints a bleak picture but still manages to offer a ray of hope. The '70s are young, and 18-year-old Trish is a newlywed. When a Florida judge sentences her junkie husband to ten years for stealing stereos, she immediately seeks out a fix, and before she knows it she's hooked. There follows a long sojourn as she and her friends work small scams to score, head to California in search of better highs, move back to Florida, shoot up and nod off every chance they get — until death gets some of them.

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?

Andrew Brobyn's relationship was in shambles before he took the terrible acid that sent him on an almost decade-long journey seeking redemption. His immediate plans following university were to liquidate his illicit assets, sell his client list, pack up shop, and retire to his parents' home in Toronto, while he figured out what to do with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a quarter million in cash. As his drug use and bipolar disorder spiral, his situation gets stranger and stranger, taking him from his university campus to strip clubs, psych wards, and the slammer.

Faith Smith has always had a problem with alcohol. At first, she didn’t believe it was an issue, but slowly, her life begins to unravel. Her job as a teacher hangs in the balance, her marriage begins to crumble, and she realizes that she’s putting her addiction before even her own children. Faith knows she has to do something to regain control of her life. But her demons won’t abandon her so easily.

I have been a hardcore junkie for many years and I am certain that I will never stop using heroin or any other street drug. I love to get high. Point-blank. I’m sure I will overdose again and my body will be found in a gutter somewhere in Los Angeles.