The 10 Best Addiction Memoirs
Editor's Note: People have been writing books about addiction and recovery for generations, but, over the last decade or two, the addiction memoir has become one of the fastest growing genres in publishing. Maybe more of us are falling prey to addiction. Maybe we have become, as a society, more accepting of the fallen. Whatever the reason for the genre's explosive growth, it's not difficult to imagine why so many readers have come to find so many of its titles so compelling. They let us know that our experiences of addiction -- direct or indirect -- are not totally unique.
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Sam Lansky is a writer from New York City. He writes about entertainment and culture for , Billboard, and The Huffington Post.
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Memoirs are often the very best way to learn about an individual and his or her experiences, as the audience gets an up close and personal account of his or her life and journey from a very personal point of view. The books mentioned below include many of the most well-known, well-rated, and effective tales of addiction, and in most cases, rehabilitation and recovery, and will certainly be at least interesting, if not highly inspiring, for anyone who has personally experienced addiction, or has been touched by it in some way.
Parents
Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff – Goodreads Rating &#; – Amazon Rating – – This memoir, written by well-known addiction recovery author David Sheff, is perhaps the most famous account of addiction as told through the eyes of a parent. The author’s son, Nic, became addicted to crystal meth while an honor student, a varsity athlete, and a beloved sibling, and he eventually ended up living on the streets and becoming estranged from most of his loved ones. This account follows Nic’s addiction and his father’s experience of it through the early warning signs to his full blown addiction, and detai
“Davidia Jones, a nerdy child of poverty, is abused by her alcoholic mother and despicable father and is the subject of merciless taunting at her high school. The year-old bolts town with a lesbian trucker named Mama Jane and lands a gig as a &#;40s-style chanteuse in L.A. With a little Hollywood stardust, she redefines herself and begins living the life she&#;s dreamed of&#;until James, the rich golden boy she had a crush on back home, walks into her nightclub.”
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
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“Junior is a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.” Junior chronicles his observations in his diary, including the various addictions he sees plague many of the adults in his life. There are all kinds of addicts,
Julian Conor Reid
I have recently taken the opportunity to revisit several books which I read when I was younger. Taking advantage of an Audible 2 for 1 sale, I purchased The Autobiography of Malcolm X, narrated by Laurence Fishburne. One of the most important books of the 20th Century, when I listened to it last week, The Autobiography’s impact on me was every bit as profound as it had been the first time that I read it. Fishburne’s performance is exceptional.
In the words of Kevin Young, Director of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: ‘People’s lives aren’t linear, they’re messier than that… but writer Alex Haley sought to create a narrative of Malcolm’s personal development marked by clear epiphanies that signal either complete or critical breaks with a previous stage of himself.’ It is this aspect of the book, the chronology of change, which I have always found to be most inspiring. Whilst Malcolm’s indomitable spirit is evident throughout almost every stage of his life story (regardless of whether or not he was playing the role of Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Satan, Malcolm X or El Hajj Malik el Shabazz), his mental, physical and spiritual development is
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