Recovery Memoirs

From the outside, Seana Smith lived an enviable life. An Oxford graduate, a successful career with the BBC and Sydney’s Channel 9, a bestselling author, happily married. But behind this perfect life she had a secret: Seana was a drinker, and alcohol was slowly taking away her life, destroying her health, her emotional well-being, her world. With engaging style and wit, Going Under reveals the true story behind Seana’s lifelong battle with drink. It lays bare a confusing childhood of Scottish sailing adventures and also brutal violence from her bullying, alcoholic father.

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.

Join much-loved comedian Shappi Khorsandi as she looks back on her life through the lens of ADHD and finally makes sense of the chaos. From discovering the joys of shoplifting through to finally understanding her attraction to toxic men, Scatter Brain will have you laughing (and crying) as you find out what it's really like to live a life out of control. Whether you suspect you might have ADHD or you're here to enjoy the ride, let Shappi take you on her hilarious journey of self-discovery where you just might learn something useful about yourself too!

In this powerful memoir, Sheri Segal Glick explores her rough, rocky, rutted road to being in recovery. As a young teenager, Sheri developed anorexia, and has battled the illness for decades. The Skinny explores her journey, from her tumultuous time as a teenager to the disease rearing its ugly head as an adult, with her signature wit, wry humour, and absolute honesty.

On the surface, Cameron Douglas had everything: descended from Hollywood royalty (son of Michael Douglas, grandson of Kirk Douglas), he was born into a life of wealth, privilege, and comfort. But by the age of thirty, he had become a drug addict, a thief, and—after a DEA drug bust—a convicted drug dealer sentenced to five years in prison, with another five years added while he was incarcerated.

Part recovery journal, part travel log, Recovery Road Trip follows one woman's solo road trip through America after her alcoholic father’s death. Through chance encounters, she creates inspiration for those seeking to overcome addiction and find their path. Meg thought giving up alcohol would lead her to a life of comfort, wisdom, and happiness. Years later, she still hasn’t gotten there. What is it that she’s missing? When her father—a raging alcoholic himself—dies, Meg, an only child, has to fly to California from her home in New Zealand to clean up the mess that was his life.

The acclaimed author of Carved in Sand - a veteran investigative journalist who endured persistent back pain for decades - delivers the definitive book on the subject: an essential examination of all facets of the back pain industry, exploring what works, what doesn't, what may cause harm, and how to get on the road to recovery. In her effort to manage her chronic back pain, investigative reporter Cathryn Jakobson Ramin spent years and a small fortune on a panoply of treatments.

In this entrepreneur's memoir, Alli Webb invites you into her world as a businesswoman, a mother, and a partner, untangling her complicated journey with the wit and humor of a talented storyteller and the authentic wisdom of a woman who's been through it all—all the success and all the chaos. When Drybar and its world-famous blowouts took off seemingly overnight, she found herself surrounded by celebrity clients like Zooey Deschanel, Jennifer Garner, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Julia Roberts.

In 1945, US intelligence officers in Manila discovered that the Japanese had hidden large quantities of gold bullion and other looted treasure in the Philippines. President Truman decided to recover the gold but to keep its riches secret. These, combined with Japanese treasure recovered during the US occupation, and with recovered Nazi loot, would create a worldwide American political action fund to fight communism.

Lynn grew up the carefree daughter of a Miami undercover narcotics agent—until her dad snuck out of the house in the dark of night without a glance back. She never knew what happened to her father until she was in high school, and he was in prison for drug smuggling. By then, Lynn had developed a dangerous drug and alcohol habit of her own. It was the perfect setup for her to latch onto the only connection to her dad that remained when he was paroled from prison—cocaine.

There Is No Wall is ultrarunner Allie Bailey's brutally honest and sometimes shocking account of alcoholism, depression and severe mental breakdowns which almost cost her her life. Told with disarming vulnerability, heartbreaking depth of feeling and dark humour, this isn't a story about how running saved her–she was already running and at the height of her struggles sometimes even winning 100-mile-plus races.

An urgent and timely memoir exploring the reality of childhood sexual abuse, a scourge on too many neighborhoods, often hiding in plain sight. Millions of victims remain silent, buried under the weight of their own guilt, shame, and addiction. Breaking the Ruhls will resonate deeply with many who have experienced similar trauma, boundary violations, and abuse within the family, and struggle with the emotional and psychological effect.

From the outside looking in, the young life of Mia Döring seemed unremarkable, as she pursued her studies at a prominent Dublin art college. Unbeknownst to those around her, however, Mia's life was anything but ordinary. At age 16, she had been sexually exploited by an older man, which carved a direct path into the Irish sex trade, where she remained for several years until finally leaving it behind over a decade ago, at age 24. In her literary memoir, Mia excavates her difficult history as she sets about integrating her past with her present-day life.

The Gilded Razor is the true story of a double life. By the age of seventeen, Sam Lansky was an all-star student with Ivy League aspirations in his final year at an elite New York City prep school. But a nasty addiction to prescription pills spiraled rapidly out of control, compounded by a string of reckless affairs with older men, leaving his bright future in jeopardy. After a terrifying overdose, he tried to straighten out.

This audiobook is Nick Carter's autobiography and self-help hybrid, in which he chronicles his struggles with a dysfunctional family and the unimaginable rigors of becoming an internationally successful pop-star at the age of 12. From his battle with addiction to serious health complications and the pain of his younger sister's tragic death, Nick leaves nothing to the imagination and offers true and heartfelt advice to help listeners overcome obstacles in their own lives.

From the creator of the blog Renegade Mothering, Janelle Hanchett's forthright, darkly funny, and ultimately empowering memoir chronicling her tumultuous journey from young motherhood to abysmal addiction and a recovery she never imagined possible. Pregnant at 21 by a man she'd known three months, Janelle Hanchett embraced motherhood with the determined optimism of the recklessly self-confident. After giving birth, she found herself bored, directionless, and seeking relief in wine, which she justified as sophisticated and going well with chicken.

David Giffen was once a defrocked priest. Having spent a decade as an Anglican cleric in Southwestern Ontario, David served in leadership in three urban social-justice focused appointments as a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. David was deprived of ministry and terminated from his appointment as incumbent priest of his parish on December 12th, 2018. He was in his fourth month on medical leave. David was formally accused, investigated and found guilty of sexual misconduct, all while he was drugged out, melting down on social media.

Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her pulse-raising memoir. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.

As Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia, sleeping an hour or less each night. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepines—a family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan—and increases her dosage regularly.

Weeks after giving birth, Holly Frances went from being a healthy 26-year-old new mom to paralyzed and on life support—in less than 72 hours. Diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Holly was trapped in her body, unable to move, speak, or hold her newborn daughter. Life Support tells the story of how Holly struggled to overcome the despair, hopelessness and physical pain, to regain her health and get back to being a mother to her daughter.