I am an author, science journalist, and storyteller. I worked for the PBS science series NOVA for many years, producing documentaries, podcasts, digital video series, and interactive games on everything from asteroids to human origins to art restoration. But I am particularly fascinated by strange brains, which is why I wrote my first book, The Memory Thief. I am currently at work on a second book about a different neurological disorder.
What if addiction isn’t a chronic relapsing disease, as described by the National Institute on Drug Abuse? What if a better way to think about it is as a type of learning disorder? Neuroscientist and author Marc Lewis, himself a recovering addict, makes his compelling argument through the stories of five people suffering from substance use disorders. This insightful book left me believing that the attempt to fit addiction into rigid categories does a disservice to the complexity of this condition.
Through the vivid, true stories of five people who journeyed into and out of addiction, a renowned neuroscientist explains why the "disease model" of addiction is wrong and illuminates the path to recovery.The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction a brain disease, based on evidence that brains change with drug use. But in The Biology of Desire , cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes a convincing case that addiction is not a disease, and shows why the disease model has become an obstacle to healing.Lewis reveals addiction as an unintended consequence of…
I come from a family of “functional” alcoholics, where feelings were never discussed and drinking was the way to solve (or more likely avoid or cause) problems. After 25 years of abusing alcohol (and drugs), I finally got sober. And for the first time ever, I started writing, because all those feelings I pushed down wanted a voice. All that childhood trauma needed more than AA and talk therapy to heal. So I gifted those feelings with written words, as did the writers I mention in my list. Recovery is something to pass on and telling our stories is another healing way to do it.
I worked with Erin on a deeply personal essay when she was an editor at Ravishly and was so excited when her memoir was published. Though we used different drugs and came from different backgrounds, our stories were similar, as are most addicts. We use to get rid of the pain, the shame, the anxiety/depression, whatever ails us. We find reprieve through our addictions, but find a loving life in recovery.
“This is a story she needed to tell; and the rest of the country needs to listen.” — New York Times Book Review
“This vital memoir will change how we look at the opioid crisis and how the media talks about it. A deeply moving and emotional read, STRUNG OUT challenges our preconceived ideas of what addiction looks like.” —Stephanie Land, New York Times bestselling author of Maid
In this deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her fifteen-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in…
My name is Craig Melvin and I’m an anchor on NBC’s Today show. I’m also a father to my two young kids, Delano and Sybil. Being a dad is so important to me because when you’re a parent, you’re charged with shaping and molding a solid human being whose empathetic, compassionate, and responsible. I don’t take the responsibility lightly. Of the many jobs I have, it’s the most important.
This book follows a dad’s written record of what happened immediately after each of his three children was born. His retelling of the tantrums and the way that your world becomes turned upside down with young kiddos is captured in a way that’s extremely funny, but also relatable. This book is honest and doesn’t sugarcoat what being a dad is really like.
When Michael Lewis became a father, he decided to keep a written record of what actually happened immediately after the birth of each of his three children. This book is that record. But it is also something else: maybe the funniest, most unsparing account of ordinary daily household life ever recorded, from the point of view of the man inside. The remarkable thing about this story isn't that Lewis is so unusual. It's that he is so typical. The only wonder is that his wife has allowed him to publish it.
I’m passionate about connecting with people through therapy and helping them to better understand themselves. There’s no better way to do that than through reading. I’ve always been interested in the human condition, reading psychology magazines and books about love, mental health, and self-identity from a young age. They helped me to navigate tougher times when I was experiencing my own adversity. I believe in the power of health literacy, and with lived experience in mental health as both a psychotherapist and a client, I manage my own mental health using the same techniques I share with readers in my book and those found through reading books such as these.
While anxiety and addiction get a lot of airtime in fiction, depression is less common. That’s why I devoured Jessie Stephen’s book. It brings life to what it’s like to live with depression through a page-turning story where you’re rooting for the main characters.
I recommend this book to anyone who has depression, but perhaps more importantly, to those who know and love someone living with a mood disorder. It has a way of demonstrating the nuances and intrusive thoughts that people with depression experience but often have difficulty verbalizing.
I am an author and adventure activist who believes passionately in the power of big and small adventures to change your life for the better when you’ve been through dark and difficult times. I have written three books, all of which I describe as ‘alternative adventure stories’ because they don’t look like the usual ‘Boy’s Own’ tales of danger and derring-do (although they do include some of that, too!). I’m drawn to the words of wonderful women warriors who give me strength in times of sadness. These books have inspired me to live big and bravely in what is often a challenging but (mainly) wonderful world.
The first book I read that spoke intimately to my belief in the power of walking (in fact any physical and mental endurance challenge) to change your life for the better when you’ve been through dark and difficult times.
I also loved it for its celebration of nature, the joy of journeying alone, and having random encounters with strangers.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
I used my first chemicals at age nine. Why? To change the way I felt about myself and my life. It was the beginning of using externals to fix an internal problem.
A 74-year old Native American found me at ten months in recovery. He showed me a path to follow, including opening a house of healing for other women. His teachings, spiritual principles, and a lot of work helped me achieve 32 years in recovery.
In 1992, Mishka Shubaly survived a mass shooting at his school, his parents divorced, his father abandoned him, and he swore he would right all the wrongs for his mother. Instead, he began a love affair with the bottle and barely crawled out, but he did, and we cheer him on at each twist and turn in his journey.
An odyssey of family, heartbreak, violence, punk rock, brokenness, broke-ness, sex, love, loss, drinking, drinking, drinking, and an unlikely savior: distance running.A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a twenty-four-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus, then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother, but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol.Almost two decades later, Shubaly's life…
I am a two-time kidney-transplanted author and occasional actor. Born in Toronto, LA-raised and currently living in Winnipeg with my husband, Kevin, I love dogs, books, and being sober. When my father died of alcoholism at 38, I did not understand it was a disease. 11 years ago, my addiction escalated to the point of overdose during the year my husband gave me a kidney. When I went into rehab, writing became vital to my healing, and my memoir was born. I am passionate about enlightening readers to the world of chronic illness and pain and the spiritual component to recovery. (Warning: I will interrupt you mid-sentence if I see a dog.)
The book pushed all my buttons. Marlowe has brief-ish relationship with heroin in NYC in the ’90s and apparently, can “just stop.” Her studied reflections on heroin and its culture are cemented in absolute resistance to the idea that addiction is a disease. For me, this is a dangerous concept that makes me cringe, as much of her book did. But her resolute intelligence and ego make for fascinating reading. With a frown, I reflected on phrases like, “Living in an eternal present is not good for us, no matter how much we want it.” Her book reminded me of the many ways people define addiction. It inspired me to get crystal clear on my viewpoint before I took pen to page.
In a coolly dispassionate voice, Ann Marlowe has created a mock dictionary in order to dissect her addiction to - and her eventual rejection of - heroin. Each entry, varying from the anecdotal to the analytical, describes the allure and the degradation of the drug, set against the story of her own life. Without glamorizing it, she explores the seduction of the drug and honestly reveals heroin's temporary deep satisfaction, before finally casting the drug aside as a failed, even abusive, lover, a negligent spouse, a one-way ultimately doomed relationship. Her journey through heroin is a cerebral tale grounded in…
I took my first hit of marijuana when I was 9. I had my first drink at 12 and my first shot of heroin at 14. My brother and sister were also alcoholics and ended up taking their own lives. I abused drugs and alcohol for over 30 years, and after many failed attempts to turn my life around, I now have 15 years of continuous sobriety. I’ve also read almost ninety books on the topic of substance abuse and have written several myself about my personal struggles to get clean and sober and stay that way. Addiction, sadly, is a subject I know all too well.
Another underrated and underread book, this memoir traces one woman’s descent into heroin hell and, ultimately, her recovery and redemption. I’ve known many heroin addicts in my day, and I hate to say it, especially publicly, but very few have been able to turn their lives around. Mitchell is one of the exceptions, and she sets a wonderful example for others to follow and not lose hope. Many memoirists simply make a record of their lives, or, worse, glorify their drug addiction, but not Hanson. Her book is one of insight and soul-searching into the madness of addiction. She pulls no punches about the ugliness of the addict’s life, yet at the same time, she offers hope to the most seemingly hopeless among us. At the heart of this book is a powerful message of recovery by someone, who by all accounts, should be dead.
After surviving nearly a decade of heroin abuse and hard living on the streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin District, Tracey Helton Mitchell decided to get clean for good.
With raw honesty and a poignant perspective on life that only comes from starting at rock bottom, Tracey tells her story of transformation from homeless heroin addict to stable mother of three-and the hard work and hard lessons that got her there. Rather than dwelling on the pain of addiction, The Big Fix focuses on her journey of recovery and rebuilding her life, while exposing the failings of the American rehab system…
My name is K. E. Garland, and I am a recovering female sex addict. I didn’t know it until I was 42. In 2014, I had a rock-bottom moment that forced me to confront my compulsions. I self-therapized through writing. As a blogger, I described ways I’d buried interrelated traumas. During the nine years it took for me to research and write my memoir, there were few books about female sex addiction. Now, there are several! The books I’ve recommended not only provide a well-rounded understanding of a little-known phenomenon, but they also help to demarginalize stories of how women live with behavioral addictions. I hope you’ll find them useful.
I loved this book because it was the first memoir I’d read about a Mexican-American woman who struggled with sex and porn addiction. I liked that Garza didn’t experience a lot of trauma in her life, yet she still found herself addicted to watching porn.
A lot of times, we only hear about porn addiction as a young man’s problem, but Garza’s memoir illustrates how women can also live with this issue. Because of Garza’s memoir, I knew I wasn’t alone in my sexual experiences.
"Erica Garza has written a riveting, can't-look-away memoir of a life lived hardcore...In an era when predatory male sexual behavior has finally become a topic of urgent national discourse...Getting Off makes for a wild, timely read" (Elle).
A fixation on porn and orgasm, strings of failed relationships and serial hook-ups with strangers, inevitable blackouts to blunt the shame-these are not things we often hear women share publicly, and not with the candor, eloquence, and introspection Erica Garza brings to Getting Off.
What sets this courageous and riveting account apart from your typical misery memoir is the absence of any precipitating…
I took my first hit of marijuana when I was 9. I had my first drink at 12 and my first shot of heroin at 14. My brother and sister were also alcoholics and ended up taking their own lives. I abused drugs and alcohol for over 30 years, and after many failed attempts to turn my life around, I now have 15 years of continuous sobriety. I’ve also read almost ninety books on the topic of substance abuse and have written several myself about my personal struggles to get clean and sober and stay that way. Addiction, sadly, is a subject I know all too well.
This book also deals with addiction science, and Hanson is a gifted writer who’s able to express complex ideas in simple, straightforward language. And he also devotes a good deal of time to the care and healing aspects of substance abuse. It takes one to know one, as the saying goes, and Mr. Hanson knows from personal experience and extensive investigative research what it’s like to struggle with addiction. Underrated and underread, this book is right up there with the best on the subjects of addiction and recovery.
