Reading these books about alcoholism (memoirs, nonfiction, and fiction) and recommending them to you is part of my personal therapy. Over the past year, I’ve been drawn towards other memoirs about addiction. Either I hadn’t realised these books existed or I avoided them. I’m not sure which is true, but I wish I had read them sooner. At events, I’m often asked about my relationship with alcohol.
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Finally, at the behest of his coworkers and boss, he ends up in a rehab that specifically caters to gay and lesbian patients. Once his 30 days are up, he has to figure out how to return to his New York City lifestyle sans alcohol. Burroughs’ story is one of triumph and loss, professional success and personal failure, finding your way best alcoholic memoirs to sobriety, falling into relapse, and starting all over again.
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Arabella and I held an event at Blackwell’s in Oxford during my book tour. Memoirs are often viewed as the output of some opportunistic money maker riding the popularity wave of https://www.barake.com.br/sultech02/saving-time-and-resources-with-ach-wells-fargo/ some narcissistic celebrity. Frequently written by underpaid ghostwriters, the narrative might fall somewhere between humble bragging and the emotional vomit of a person of notoriety that I have never heard of. Why does anyone under 30 feel the need to write an ego-stroking memoir to begin with? Like Hepola, I loved the excitement of the whole bar scene, and quite often, drank until I blacked out.
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It was almost like I had lost the ability to think past the present moment, which is ironically something we strive for in recovery. I guess in the back of my mind I thought Prince Charming would come and save the day. And then other times I thought I would magically wake up one day and get my life together. Which is sort of what happened in some respect, but not in the way I expected. I just remember these moments I’d stop and allow myself to actually think about how bad things were, and only being able to sit with that feeling for a few seconds before I reached for the bottle.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of 12 books about alcohol and sobriety — including feminist cultural commentary, fact-filled guidebooks, and stirring memoirs — that will challenge the way you think about drinking. Whether you’re sober curious yourself or simply want to learn more about how alcohol affects your mind and body, you’ll find something of value on this list. Turnabout, by Jean Kirkpatrick, was published in 1977, but remains as relevant today as when it was published almost 40 years ago. Dr. Kirkpatrick details her life as an active alcoholic, including her stays in psychiatric hospitals and her multiple failed attempts at achieving and sustaining sobriety. Like many female alcoholics, Dr. Kirkpatrick experienced the physical effects of her drinking sooner than men drinkers normally do and was already diagnosed with cirrhosis by the time she achieved sobriety for the final time.
- I very much related to her always feeling “less than” in normal life, and only becoming confident and alive once she poured alcohol down her throat.
- Bruno’s complete lack of contact with reality makes his alcoholism seemingly beside the point, but as the story progresses, I find my sympathies shifting as Bruno becomes more and more helplessly imprisoned by his disease.
- Below are fifteen incredible books by drinkers who battled alcohol addiction and lived to tell the tale.
“The Sober Lush: A Hedonist’s Guide to Living a Decadent, Adventurous, Soulful Life–Alcohol Free”
It’s a heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking account of finding a sense of belonging and understanding in a community of misfits and mentors. The bar becomes a sanctuary for the author, offering him a sense of camaraderie and support as he navigates the complexities of life. This book about alcoholics is a beautifully written tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of unconventional families to shape our lives.
One hint that the author and protagonist of A Fan’s Notes (1968) are really the same person is that they are both called Frederick Exley. All these books might have been published as memoir in a less stigmatising age. Caroline Knapp’s love affair with alcohol started in her early teens. She went on to drink her way through four years at an Ivy League college and an award-winning career as an editor and columnist.
And she had an almost miraculous ability to portray her broken family with wit and love, without ever flinching from pain. 2000’s Cherry picked up the story by showing Karr as an adolescent, already dabbling with drugs and profoundly lacking any sense of belonging. Ditlevsen’s failure of nerve, causing her to wrap up three volumes of the most trenchant and unillusioned autobiography ever written with a feeble daydream, is easily explained. She surely felt the reader (and perhaps the author) had endured too much pain in the preceding story to be sent away without solace. The fact that, in so doing, she effectively obeyed a formal convention of addiction memoir helps explain how many of those conventions arose. The fact that even a great artist like Ditlevsen can capitulate to such dictates, if only once, demonstrates how powerful they are.
But the challenge is particularly acute when the story is about a life that, as the reader well knows, has simply gone on and on beyond the final page. Life doesn’t provide moments of satisfying narrative resolution. How do you craft an ending that makes narrative sense but which feels complex and inconclusive in the way life so often is?
With its insightful exploration of the potential of literature to change lives, Lit Up is a must-read for anyone passionate about the power of books to inspire and shape the next generation. As a mother, I relate to her story so deeply—our children were the same young age when we stopped drinking. She’s an iconic, witty literary voice, an engrossing storyteller, and this book too is a great study in memoir. When I first read this book over ten years ago it felt like I was reading my own journal (if my journal was written in incredibly eloquent prose). I almost wanted to snap it shut, but instead finished it in one day and have read it at least three more times since.
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Then I told myself it was because I was a journalist working the night shift. Then I insisted the daily drinking was just part of adulthood. Check out our picks for the best addiction and recovery memoirs. Morningside Recovery offers the full-spectrum of comprehensive addiction treatment in Orange County, CA. Take that first step on the road to recovery and make better choices, every day. Dry is a New York Times best-selling memoir, Augusten Burroughs exposes the frightening roots of addiction.
It was first published marijuana addiction in Danish in the 1970s, but has only recently been translated into English by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favela Goldman. The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for, or to be relied upon as, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a physician or qualified health provider with questions regarding a medical condition.