Recovery Memoirs

Matt Rowland Hill had two great loves in his life: Jesus and heroin. The son of an evangelical minister, Hill grew up with an unwavering devotion to the tenets of his parents’ Baptist church. But by high school, he began to experience a crisis of faith. To fill the void, he turned to literature, and then to heroin and cocaine. By his twenties, Hill’s substance abuse escalated into a full-on addiction. As he grew increasingly suicidal, he knew he had to come to terms with both religion and drugs to survive.

“You were like this once. What did you do to get better?” A day out from a mental institution, a woman devastated by flashbacks from childhood trauma poses this question to her big brother. Within a few weeks, she took her own life. This book is the answer that her brother wished he could have offered. Spiritual director and professor Frank Rogers had been there. As a young adult, he too was tormented by trauma suffered in the same family.

For seven years, Shannon Kopp battled the silent, horrific, and all-too-common disease of bulimia. Then, at 24, she got a job working at the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA, where in caring for shelter dogs, she found the inspiration to heal and the courage to forgive herself. With the help of some extraordinary homeless animals, Shannon realized that her suffering was the birthplace of something beautiful. Compassion.

D.J. Burr is a man on a mission; successful business owner, highly respected psychotherapist, and survivor of a dysfunctional life. At a young age, all he wanted was to be loved, but instead found himself targeted by a sexual predator. D.J. slipped into a life of addiction and clawed his way through broken relationships and seedy sex clubs - looking for love in all the wrong places. D.J. will take listeners on a roller coaster of emotions as he details his search for grace and love.

Diario de una ninfómana es el conmovedor relato de una mujer francesa, de buena familia, licenciada en dirección de empresas, que narra su evolución vital a través de las relaciones sexuales que va teniendo: con los sepultureros de un cementerio, con un árabe muy aficionado a la Coca-Cola, con un policía sin escrúpulos, con desconocidos en lugares imprevistos... Multitud de vivencias que asume con la máxima libertad que tiene cualquier persona: la que uno se concede a sí mismo y no la que se ve obligado a tener.

Few people can justify a memoir at the age of 33. Gregory Scofield is the exception, a young man who has inhabited several lives in the time most of us can manage only one. Born into a Métis family of Cree, Scottish, English, and French descent but never told of his heritage, Gregory knew he was different. His father disappeared after he was born, and at five he was separated from his mother and sent to live with strangers and extended family. There, began a childhood marked by constant loss, poverty, violence, and self-hatred.

In his late teens Tom Macher rebelled against a world that seemed stacked against him. Raised in a broken family and estranged from an absentee father suffering with AIDS, Macher turned to alcohol to escape the painful loneliness of his reality. In quick succession, he is kicked out of school, and then his mother's house, sent to a boys' home in Montana, and later, a halfway house in a truck-stop town of Louisiana. It was there that Macher encounters a community of young men struggling to survive.

In the summer of 2012 a woman named Eva was found dead in the London townhouse she shared with her husband, Hans K. Rausing. The couple had struggled with addiction for years, often under the glare of tabloid headlines. Now, writing with singular clarity and restraint, Hans' sister, the editor and publisher Sigrid Rausing, tries to make sense of what happened. Mayhem is an eloquent and timely attempt to understand addiction and a memoir that is as poignant and riveting as it is devastating.

Tara Sidhoo Fraser is thirty-one years old when a rare mutation in her brain causes a stroke. Awakening after surgery with no memory of her previous life, she attempts to piece it all back together through a haze of amnesia. Yet, as memories do begin to surface, they are seen through someone else's eyes—the person whose body she stole, whom she calls Ghost.

One man discovers a new hobby in his journey to recover from depression. In Wild Coin Hunting, Robert W. Griggs details his invention of a new sport, explaining how the rules of hunting “wild coins” also serve as practices to recover joy while living with depression. The result is a relatable narrative that balances humor with hard truths. Wild Coin Hunting dispenses with the well-worn tropes of self-help books, focusing instead on the return of pleasure and other recovery essentials.

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.

I decided to write this book to share the last 20 years and how opiates devastated my life. I hope that people who listen to this book will learn about the disease of opiate addiction and seek help before it's too late. I share details about my life as it was before the injury and the many ways this injury turned my life and the lives of all those dear to me into a living hell over the next decade. This included my wife, children, extended family, and friends who also share their stories and experiences in this book.

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.

Wife of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill W., Lois tells many wonderful stories from her and Bill's lives.

With raw grit and vulnerability, Scott recounts his life growing up in small-town USA and details the ways in which addiction and mental illness resulted in losses that no father, son, or brother should even have to endure. Alongside his youngest son, Wes, a medical professional in psychiatry, they take a closer look into the world of addiction and the epidemic we find ourselves to be in - revealing the causes, variables, and paths to consider moving forward.

When my eyes creaked open and tried to find focus, I didn’t know where I was. The room was dim, my wrists were tied to the bed rail, and the dull ache of a needle in my hand throbbed through the fog. Motionless and silent, I lay staring at the ceiling until everything started coming back to me—the hallucinations, my teeth were melting, the menacing trolls teetering around the bedroom; uncontrollable shaking while my wife, Robin, helped me take a shower; and the catatonic ride to the emergency department of Meriter Hospital.

Justo cuando Glennon Doyle comenzaba a sentir que lo tenía todo, tres niños felices, un esposo cariñoso y una carrera como escritora tan exitosa que su primer libro alcanzó la cima de la lista best seller del New York Times, su esposo le reveló su infidelidad y se vio forzada a darse cuenta de que nada es lo que parece ser.

Since he was a young boy, Joe Balzer dreamed of flying. He pursued his goal with passion and earned his pilot licenses, piling up hours of flight time with a wide variety of planes and jets with one overarching goal: to one day fly for a major airline. But Joe had a problem. He was an alcoholic and refused to admit to himself that he had a problem. His alcoholism caught up with him in March 1990, when Joe was arrested with two other pilots for flying a commercial airliner while under the influence of alcohol.

No topic is too taboo or off limits, from the sexual assaults she suffered as a child to the exhibitionism displayed and multiple abortions she had as an adult. Garland weaves the seedy and secretive world of a sex addict with her words, removing the erotic and replacing it with the reality of what it means to live a double life: lying to and cheating on the ones you love.

Lost and Found: A Sober Living Story is a powerful and inspiring journey of transformation, healing, and hope. In this deeply moving narrative, Dr. Brenda Combs introduces readers to Jennifer—a woman who has lost everything to addiction but finds the courage to reclaim her life inside a sober living home. Through raw honesty and emotional depth, Jennifer’s story reveals the pain of her past, the challenges of recovery, and the strength it takes to rebuild from the ground up. As she confronts trauma, temptation, and self-doubt, she also discovers the power of community, accountability, ...