Showing results for "Stories" in Addiction & Recovery

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor", a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.

While his wife and two-year-old daughter watched TV in the living room, David Poses was in the kitchen, measuring the distance from his index finger to his armpit. He needed to be sure he could pull the trigger with a shotgun barrel in his mouth. Twenty-six inches. Thirty-two years old. More than a decade in a double life fueled by depression and heroin.

Wife of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill W., Lois tells many wonderful stories from her and Bill's lives.

This Naked Life offers 48 raw and real stories of people, who have found freedom from alcohol. In this audio, discover how Bryan went from hopeless certainty that drinking would eventually kill him, to absolute peace over the course of a single day. See how listening one book gave Jennifer total freedom after 20 years of binge drinking. Watch Becca thrive in ways she had never thought possible, all because she learned it was okay to question her relationship with alcohol before she hit rock bottom.

With heart-racing urgency and unflinching honesty, Jenkins takes you inside the grips of addiction and the desperate decisions it breeds. She is a born storyteller who lived an incredible story, from blackmail by an ex-boyfriend to a soul-shattering deal with a drug dealer, and her telling brims with suspense and unexpected wit. But the true surprise is her path to recovery. Tiffany breaks through the stigma and silence to offer hope and inspiration to anyone battling the disease - whether it’s a loved one or themselves.

The author's young adulthood basically amounts to a how-to primer for addiction. Paranoia and impulsiveness, obsession, and manipulation. Throw in compulsion, false pride, fear and dishonesty, all driven by self-centered thinking. The gateway behavior for all the others. Blessed with a good memory, almost granular for certain events and circumstances, Mike Matson turns his journalist's eye on his own past and the result is an honest, unflinching look at his decades-long struggle with addiction.

When the third Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous was published in 1976, 30 Personal Stories originally printed in the first and second editions were omitted to make room for new stories. Lost to posterity, these stories have remained unseen by millions who got sober using the third and fourth editions of the Big Book. Vital in both their content and message, these lost stories from the early decades of AA are no less powerful today than they were when first printed in 1939 or 1955. To listen to them now is to listen to them as brand-new stories of experience, strength, and hope.

The first edition of Alcoholics Anonymous was published in April 1939. It rapidly became known as the “Big Book” and launched the AA Program that has helped millions of people around the world get and stay sober. As the basic text of AA, its chapters show other alcoholics precisely how 100 men and women recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. It lays out a proven program of action to stop drinking, including the original Twelve Steps.

David Clark went from the rock bottom of bankruptcy, addiction, and obesity to becoming an accomplished athlete. In this compelling story of his life, he not only shares his journey with complete honesty, but he also lays out a blueprint for change that anyone can use to redefine what is possible.

The story of a young girl's entrapment in gambling addiction. The true advert for problem gambling and how it controlled her every movement, her every thought and almost took her life. How the guilt and shame that go hand-in-hand with addiction stopped her from reaching out for help for eight years as she didn't feel it was okay for a young female to be a problem gambler. How she believed it was a male dominated problem, and how eventually, she did find the tools that enabled her to become free of her addiction.

First Earl tells his story - It's pretty wild and people laugh, a lot. Earl H Topic Talks - enjoyable upbeat plenty of Rule 62, Earl talks about each of the 12 steps in order and share his experience strength and hope. Exciting Fun AA - Earl is never dull.

John Walker was a Miami undercover narcotics agent in the 1970s. Ten years later, he was in prison for smuggling 12,000 pounds of marijuana. In prison, he connected with a South American drug lord who was still running the family operation from inside the federal pen. Within months of being paroled, John began smuggling again—this time uncut Colombian cocaine. And this time, he put everything on the line: his freedom, his family and, ultimately, his life.

As the heart-wrenching personal stories in this book reveal, family members do not cause their loved one's addiction. Nor can they control or cure addiction. What family members can do is find support, set boundaries, detach with love, and eventually discover how to enjoy life whether their loved one finds recovery or not. Addict in the Family is a book about sorrow, deception, and pain. More importantly, it is a book of comfort, hope, and understanding for anyone struggling with a loved one's addiction.

The Gambling Addiction Workbook is a life-changing guide that has helped many to understand and overcome their gambling addiction. In this unique self-help guide for recovery, you will find a remarkable how-to plan for lasting recovery.

As an employee of three different yarn stores, a teacher of countless knitting classes, and a volunteer with at-risk youth, Lee has had the opportunity to gather diverse stories. The stories she shares about herself and fellow knitters from around the world illustrate how each stitch and purl can comfort and calm, heal and renew. This book includes stories of women, men, and teens who have experienced profound change and enlightenment through knitting and crochet.

From “one of the bravest, smartest writers about addiction anywhere” (Johann Hari, New York Times best-selling author) - the untold story of harm reduction, a surprisingly simple idea with enormous power.

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.

We are a diminishing group of men and women whose amazing experience actually resembles the incredible experience described in the original “Big Book.” To show other alcoholics, through the heavy use of sarcasm, precisely how far away from that message we have strayed is the main purpose of this book. For them, we hope these chapters will effectively point out the absolute ridiculousness of much of what is commonly spoken, taught, and accepted in the world of recovery today, thus inspiring a reevaluation of the actual “Big Book”.

Unraveled is a tale of chaos and near-death experiences that shares personal and private moments and the intense challenges and grueling work it takes to get sober and remain sober. It’s a unique story of a mother and son’s journey that ends with on-your-knees epiphanies that leave both parent and child asking for help. This tandem narrative is a compelling testimony of bravery and honesty that, with edgy and surprising humor, charts a family’s slow climb out of the abyss of pain into the full power of faith, redemption, and healing.

Written by members of the Chronic Pain Anonymous 12-step fellowship, Stories of Hope presents the tools and principles of the 12 steps as catalysts for emotional, mental, and spiritual transformation. Each of the courageous men and women who contributed to this collection shares their journey from despair to hope.