Apology to the Young Addict
Apology to the Young Addict

Author: James Brown

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2020-03-03

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1640092870

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Husband, addict, father, skeptic. Now sixty—with years of sobriety under his belt—the celebrated author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This River returns with his most moving work yet. Opening with the tragic tale of an elderly couple consumed by opioid addiction and moving through the horrors of a Las Vegas massacre to the loss of a beloved sponsor, these essays draw on Brown’s personal journey to illustrate how an individual life, in all its messiness and charm, can offer a blueprint for healing. From writing about finding a new path in life while raising three sons, to making peace with the family whose ghosts have haunted him, and helping the next generation of addicts overcome their disease, this haunting and hopeful book is a reinvention of the recovery story and a lasting testimony from the master of the modern memoir. “The third panel in Brown’s masterwork triptych on addiction from youth to sixty, Apology to the Young Addict also accomplishes at last a staggeringly rare mercy—on the ghosts of memory, the ravages of disease, the brutal hypocrisies of religion, and finally—most shockingly—on himself.” —Gina Frangello, author of Every Kind of Wanting and A Life in Men

The Los Angeles Diaries
The Los Angeles Diaries

Author: James Brown

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2011-03-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1582438730

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Plagued by the suicides of both his siblings, and heir to alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, and economic ruin, James Brown lived a life clouded by addiction, broken promises, and despair. In The Los Angeles Diaries, he reveals his struggle for survival, mining his past to present the inspiring story of his redemption. Beautifully written and limned with dark humor, these twelve deeply confessional, interconnected chapters address personal failure, heartbreak, the trials of writing for Hollywood, and the life–shattering events that finally convinced Brown that he must "change or die." In "Snapshot," Brown is five years old and recalls the night his mother "sets fire to an apartment building down the street." In "Daisy," Brown purchases a Vietnamese potbellied pig for his wife to atone for his sins, only to find the pig's bulk growing in direct proportion to the tensions in his marriage. Harrowing and brutally honest, The Los Angeles Diaries is the chronicle of a man on a collision course with life, who ultimately finds the strength and courage to conquer his demons and believe once more.

Chasing the Scream
Chasing the Scream

Author: Johann Hari

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-01-20

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1620408929

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The New York Times Bestseller What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question--and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix. One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his family. Confused, not knowing what to do, he set out and traveled over 30,000 miles over three years to discover what really causes addiction--and what really solves it. He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories--of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their own war on drugs--with extraordinary results. Chasing the Scream is the story of a life-changing journey that transformed the addiction debate internationally--and showed the world that the opposite of addiction is connection.

This River
This River

Author: James Brown

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2011-03-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1582438749

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“Continues where Brown’s first memoir, The Los Angeles Diaries, left off. It’s molten stuff, the story of his efforts to control his river of rage.” —Los Angeles Times 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. “A beautifully crafted and intensely moving book. Without artifice or pretension—without false moves of any sort—James Brown goes after the biggest literary game: death, love, children, degeneration, hopelessness, hope. I read this book straight through, in one spellbound sitting, and I will read it again in a week or two. It is so good.” —Tim O’Brien, National Book Award winning–author of The Things They Carried “Beautifully written, this is clear–eyed truth–telling by a man coming to terms with the best and worst in himself and others.” —Booklist “This River pulls no punches—art shouldn’t and Brown doesn’t. The good, the bad, the ugly are all there in a lucid, uncluttered, muscular prose studded with honesty, willpower, and courage. Brown’s is a story of a man who, against overwhelming odds, not only came back from the abyss, but triumphed.” —Duff Brenna, author of AWP Best Novel The Book of Mamie

A Life in Men
A Life in Men

Author: Gina Frangello

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1616203498

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The friendship between Mary and Nix had endured since childhood, a seemingly unbreakable bond, until the mid-1980s, when the two young women embarked on a summer vacation in Greece. It was a trip initiated by Nix, who had just learned that Mary had been diagnosed with a disease that would cut her life short and who was determined that it be the vacation of a lifetime. But by the time their visit to Greece was over, Nix had withdrawn from their friendship, and Mary had no idea why. Three years later, Nix is dead, and Mary returns to Europe to try to understand what went wrong. In the process she meets the first of many men that she will spend time with as she travels throughout the world. Through them she experiences not only a sexual awakening but a spiritual and emotional awakening that allows her to understand how the past and the future are connected and to appreciate the freedom to live life adventurously.

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain
Memoirs of an Addicted Brain

Author: Marc Lewis

Publisher: Doubleday Canada

Published: 2011-10-04

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0385669267

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A gripping, ultimately triumphant memoir that's also the most comprehensive and comprehensible study of the neuroscience of addiction written for the general public. FROM THE INTRODUCTION: "We are prone to a cycle of craving what we don't have, finding it, using it up or losing it, and then craving it all the more. This cycle is at the root of all addictions, addictions to drugs, sex, love, cigarettes, soap operas, wealth, and wisdom itself. But why should this be so? Why are we desperate for what we don't have, or can't have, often at great cost to what we do have, thereby risking our peace and contentment, our safety, and even our lives?" The answer, says Dr. Marc Lewis, lies in the structure and function of the human brain. Marc Lewis is a distinguished neuroscientist. And, for many years, he was a drug addict himself, dependent on a series of dangerous substances, from LSD to heroin. His narrative moves back and forth between the often dark, compellingly recounted story of his relationship with drugs and a revelatory analysis of what was going on in his brain. He shows how drugs speak to the brain - which is designed to seek rewards and soothe pain - in its own language. He shows in detail the neural mechanics of a variety of powerful drugs and of the onset of addiction, itself a distortion of normal perception. Dr. Lewis freed himself from addiction and ended up studying it. At the age of 30 he traded in his pharmaceutical supplies for the life of a graduate student, eventually becoming a professor of developmental psychology, and then of neuroscience - his field for the last 12 years. This is the story of his journey, seen from the inside out.

Every Kind of Wanting
Every Kind of Wanting

Author: Gina Frangello

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2017-08-08

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 161902862X

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Every Kind of Wanting explores the complex intersection of three unique families and their bustling efforts to have a "Community Baby." Miguel could not be more different from his partner Chad, a happy–go–lucky real estate mogul from Chicago's wealthy North Shore. When Chad's sister, Gretchen offers the couple an egg, their search for a surrogate leads them to Miguel's old friend Emily, happily married to an eccentric Irish playwright, Nick, with whom she is raising two boys. Into this web falls Miguel's sister Lina, a former addict and stripper, who begins a passionate affair with Nick while deciphering the mysteries of her past. But every action these couples make has unforeseen consequences. As Lina faces her long–hidden demons, and the fragile friendships between Miguel and Chad and Nick and Emily begin to fray as the baby's birth draws near, a shocking turn of events—and the secret Lina's been hiding—threaten to break them apart forever. By turns funny, dark and sexy, Every Kind of Wanting strips bare the layers of the American family today. Tackling issues such as assimilation, the legacy of secrets, the morality of desire, and ultimately who "owns" love, the characters—across all ethnicities, nationalities, and sexualities—are blisteringly alive.

Amends, Apologies, and the Myths of Forgiveness
Amends, Apologies, and the Myths of Forgiveness

Author: Steven C

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-01-29

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 9781541204430

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AMENDS, APOLOGIES, AND THE MYTHS OF FORGIVENESS is a guide to the 12-Step "amends" process and is intended to help recovering addicts navigate the Eighth and Ninth Steps. Maybe even more than the Fourth Step moral inventory, the Eighth and Ninth Steps- the process of going to the people we have harmed and offering amends for our misdeeds-can bring the recovery journey to a grinding halt. "How can I face the people I've wronged?" "How can I make amends for some of the things I've done?" "What if someone won't accept my amends?" "What if making amends will get me in trouble?" AMENDS, APOLOGIES AND THE MYTHS OF FORGIVENESS: A Guide to the Eighth and Ninth Steps is dedicated to the belief that the amends process, while challenging, is do-able. This booklet contains a wealth of guidelines, insights and suggestions to help the recovering addict receive the gifts of this part of the path to sanity and wholeness.

Lighting Up
Lighting Up

Author: Susan Shapiro

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Published: 2004-12-28

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 044033523X

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In the critically acclaimed Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro revisited five self-destructive romances. In her hilarious, illuminating new memoir, Lighting Up, she rejects five self-destructive substances. This difficult quest for clean living starts with Shapiro’s shocking revelation that, at forty, her lengthiest, most emotionally satisfying relationship has been with cigarettes. A two-pack-a-day smoker since the age of thirteen, Susan Shapiro quickly discovers that it’s impossible to be a writer, a nonsmoker, sane, and slender in the same year. The last time she tried to quit, she gained twenty-three pounds, couldn’t concentrate on work, and wanted to kill herself and her husband, Aaron, a TV comedy writer who hates her penchant for puffing away. Yet just as she’s about to choose her vice over her marriage vows, she stumbles upon a secret weapon. Dr. Winters, “the James Bond of psychotherapy,” is a brilliant but unorthodox addiction specialist, a former chain-smoker himself. Working his weird magic on her psyche, he unravels the roots of her twenty-seven-year compulsion, the same dangerous dependency that has haunted her doctor father, her grandfather, and a pair of eccentric aunts from opposite sides of the family, along with Freud and nearly one in four Americans. Dr. Winters teaches her how to embrace suffering, then proclaims that her months of panic, depression, insecurity, vulnerability, and wild mood swings win her the award for “the worst nicotine withdrawal in the history of the world.” Shapiro finally does kick the habit–while losing weight and finding career and connubial bliss–only to discover that the second she’s let go of her long-term crutch, she’s already replaced it with another fixation. After banishing cigarettes, alcohol, dope, gum, and bread from her day-to-day existence, she conquers all her demons and survives deprivation overload. But relying religiously on Dr. Winters, she soon realizes that the only obsession she has left to quit is him. . . . Never has the battle to stem substance abuse been captured with such wit, sophisticated insight, and candor. Lighting Up is so compulsively readable, it’s addictive.

Writing Your Way to Recovery
Writing Your Way to Recovery

Author: James Brown

Publisher: Independent Publisher

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781736884706

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Writing Your Way to Recovery: How Stories Can Save Our Lives is an extraordinary collection of personal stories and creative writing exercises designed to help others achieve lasting sobriety. This book provides a vital roadmap to the artistic, personal and spiritual growth to all those battling addiction. The authors of this unique approach to recovery should be dead. That they are not is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and the power of hope. Although they now share over three decades of sobriety, they spent even more years as alcoholics and addicts. Hell on earth is real for those suffering from substance abuse, but the authors know that there is a way out of this hell. For they have lived it, and in these pages they offer the hope, strength and wisdom of the once seemingly damned.