Reviews of books about addiction and addiction treatment
A new Hollywood memoir is due to hit bookstore shelves soon. In some ways it is the same song, different stanza as so many tales of dashed Hollywood dreams that have come before – that of a young actor brimming with talent and promise who gets caught up in a cyclone of drugs, sex and [...]
By Suzanne Kane This is not the usual addiction book review. Why is that? For one thing, the engrossing book written by Tom Bleakley, Serenity, is a work of fiction. This fact, however, takes nothing away from the story – or its potential impact on the reading public. The novel is a fascinating look into [...]
Written by a renowned psychotherapist who is herself a recovering alcoholic and drug user, From Addiction to Recovery: A Therapist’s Personal Journey is an exceedingly engaging and thoroughly engrossing personal memoir. It also will set you back on your heels if you are expecting a light and breezy journey through time. This is no filtered [...]
No, he’s not that Steve Martin, but this Steven Martin is certainly a world-class storyteller in his own right. The beauty of this book with the unique and instantly captivating title Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction is that it is written with such style and attention to words that [...]
Anyone know how to make buck? Not how to make a buck, but buck, as in jailhouse booze. Richard Broom does, although he’d be the first to say it’s not something he’s proud of.
Few of us have any inkling what it’s like living in a household with multiple addictions going on simultaneously. This doesn’t mean a single person who’s addicted to more than one substance, although one or more members of the family may have this condition.
Word of warning: This is not a typical story. Nor is it advisable to read without first realizing that this methamphetamine addict’s journey is both deeply disturbing and amazing. That David Parnell is even alive today is nothing short of a miracle, and the author himself is steadfastly adamant that it is. The one desperate [...]
As self-help workbooks go, this is a highly engaging and easy-to-understand one that should surely be on the bookshelf of anyone serious about moving beyond addiction.
This is a gut-wrenching book to read. No one likes to think of a child deliberately cutting herself or being so filled with sadness over abandonment issues that she repeatedly attempts suicide. Yet that is exactly what happened to Hannah Westberg at a young age. In Hannah: My True Story of Drugs, Cutting and Mental [...]
Everyone who’s ever seen one of the Star Wars Trilogy knows who Carrie Fisher is. That is, those who don’t already know her as a gifted and best-selling author, screenwriter, raconteur, and so on.