Addiction Memoirs

Sam Delaney was Jack the Lad. He was confident, loud and funny; an absolute legend, to be honest. Or at least that was what he pretended to be. But when he reached his thirties, work, relationships and fatherhood started to take their toll. Like so many blokes who seemed to be totally fine, he often felt like a complete failure whose life was out of control; anxiety and depression had secretly plagued him for years. Turning to drink and drugs only made things worse.

Award-winning author James Brown gained a cult following after chronicling his turbulent childhood and spiraling drug addiction in The Los Angeles Diaries. This River picks up where Brown left off in his first memoir, describing his tenuous relationship with sobriety, telling of agonizing relapses, and tracking his attempts to become a better father. This is the heartbreaking and at times uplifting tale of Brown's battles, peeking into his former life as an addict and detailing his subsequent ascent to sobriety and fight for redemption.

When Jim Wahlberg went to prison the second time at 22 years old, he was sentenced to six to nine years for breaking and entering, bargained down from life for home invasion. He had staggered into a Boston cops apartment, helping himself to the sellable stuff and all the beer in the fridge. The cop came home, found Jim passed out at the kitchen table, beat the hell out of him, and arrested him.

In the nineties, Ryan Dusick and his friends Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael dreamed about making it big . . . and against all odds, they did. This inside story recounts Maroon 5's founding and their road to becoming Grammy-winning megastars, told through the eyes of former drummer Ryan Dusick. He takes listeners behind the scenes of the band's meteoric rise to success—and the grueling demands that came with it—as well as his personal struggles with anxiety and addiction after his departure from the band.

Free Refills is the harrowing tale of a Harvard-trained medical doctor run horribly amok through his addiction to prescription medication, and his recovery. Dr. Peter Grinspoon seemed to be a total success: A Harvard-educated MD with a thriving practice; married with two great kids and a gorgeous wife; a pillar of his community. But lurking beneath the thin veneer of having it all was an addict fueled on a daily boatload of prescription meds. When the police finally came calling - after a tip from a sharp-eyed pharmacist - Grinspoon's house of cards came tumbling down fast.

In this gripping tale of a modern-day outlaw, Shane Dankoski meticulously recounts his time as a high-ranking member of the United Nations gang of British Columbia in the early 2000s. Under constant threat from other gangs, including the Wolfpack and Hells Angels, Shane spent a decade evading the law and building his drug empire. Shane seemed destined for gang life. He grew up in a violent home on a small block in a neighbourhood of Surrey where a nation-spanning gang war woudl later take root.

Carl Radke’s path from reality TV’s party-loving star to a life centered around recovery has been anything but straightforward. Famous for his role on Summer House, Carl’s journey in the spotlight has forced him to confront personal battles under public scrutiny. Beyond the cameras, he’s faced struggles with addiction, the weight of toxic masculinity, the heartbreaking loss of his brother and a quest to find real joy in a world that equates fun with alcohol.

No one likes the unpredictability of life and the storms it brings our way. Steady in the Storm documents Shonah's personal journey as she navigates through the storm of her husband's addictions as a newlywed. Coming from a background of homeschooling and Sunday school, Shonah is ill-prepared to handle the uncontrollable situation. Reaching deep into her relationship with Christ, Shonah walks you through the gift of grace, the grit of gratitude, and the lavishness of the goodness of God that got her through the storm.

As chronicled in his hit memoir Straight Pepper Diet, one fateful summer night, Joseph Naus, a young LA lawyer, went out to have just a couple of drinks. He awoke the next morning handcuffed to a hospital bed and charged with attempted murder. And then it got worse. The Palsgraf Revelation begins where Straight Pepper Diet left off. Joseph survived the initial blast of the nuclear bomb he dropped on his own life, but if he wants to become more than a shocking cautionary tale, he must now learn to live with the devastating fallout.

This book is about my life of addiction and living through it. I have had ups and downs and lost many friends. I am in recovery, and the work never stops. Every day you think about it. I have learned to rely on the tools I was given and the support of my family. This is my story.

A remarkably candid biography of the remarkably candid - and brilliant - Carrie Fisher. Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an empathic and even-handed portrayal of a woman who - as Princess Leia, but mostly as herself - was a feminist heroine, one who died at a time when we need her blazing, healing honesty more than ever.

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.

The ultimate front-row seat to the rise, fall, and rebirth of a band that was - for a time - the biggest in the world, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Jim Sonefeld’s shattering and redeeming spiritual path from addiction to recovery and a more fruitful life.

A small and effeminate boy bullied for years while growing up in an alcoholic family in suburban Cleveland Gil finds refuge in the equestrian world. A coach instills in him the dream of going to the Olympics and becomes his mentor, his guide and his predator. Gil survives rape, betrayals, setbacks, and the loss of family and friends all while on a quest to fulfill his dream. This book is not only about surviving; it's about the resilience of the human spirit and the pursuit of dreams against all odds.

Part memoir, part self-help guide, Suffer Well bridges the gap between lived experience and evidence-based solutions, offering hope and concrete strategies for those ready to change their lives. It's an essential listen for anyone interested in addiction recovery, endurance sports, personal transformation, or the remarkable possibilities that emerge when we choose to reshape our relationship with suffering.

Best known for his hysterically funny and often scathing restaurant reviews for the London Sunday Times, journalist Adrian Gill writes about his near-fatal alcoholism in this extraordinary lucid memoir. By his early 20s, at London's prestigious Saint Martin's art school, Gill was entrenched in his addiction. He writes from the handful of memories that remain, of drunken conquests with anonymous women, of waking to morbid hallucinations, of emptying jacket pockets that "were like tiny crime scenes".

In 1984, John Hanrahan was featured in Interview magazine's iconic Olympic Issue as one of America's top athletes vying for a spot on the US Olympic Team. He had come within a point of defeating the mighty Soviet world medalist and had defeated other prominent world competitors. He was within reach of a lifetime dream, but then abandoned the Final Trials. He was nowhere to be found. He hadn't exactly fallen off the face of the earth, but he'd become a full-blown drug addict, unable to face his competition, and unwilling to confront the truth of his situation.

With three children under five, a set of twins and a newborn, Rachell Brownell wanted to feel like an adult again. So she turned to three bottles of white wine a night. Through wit and honesty, Brownell lets listeners into her world of addiction, but also towards hope. Through examples of community, wisdom, and support, this book provides a map for anyone trying to get through the early stages of recovery.Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore.

In 2014, novelist Leslie Schwartz was sentenced to 90 days in Los Angeles County Jail for a DUI and battery of an officer. It was the most harrowing and holy experience of her life. Following a 414-day relapse into alcohol and drug addiction after more than a decade sober, Schwartz was sentenced and served her time with only six months' sobriety. The damage she inflicted that year upon her friends, her husband, her daughter, and herself was nearly impossible to fathom. Incarceration might have ruined her altogether, if not for the stories that sustained her while she was behind bars.

'The only way to comprehend this tragic story of mine is to write it.' On the 10th of February 2017, there was a sentencing hearing for murder in the Victorian Supreme Court. The young woman in the dock, who sat quietly with her hands in her lap, had perfect skin and light-brown hair tied back as neatly as a private school prefect's. When the judge asked her to confirm her plea, the young woman answered in a clear and polite voice. 'Guilty, Your Honour.' That killer is Mary K. Pershall's beloved daughter, Anna.