In her professional life, Shary Hauer was a confident, successful, high-caliber executive coach who advised big-time corporate leaders around the globe—but her personal life was an entirely different matter. When it came to love, she was insecure, clingy, desperate, willing to do anything and everything to win and keep a man. Because without a man by her side, what good was she? In Insatiable, Hauer fearlessly chronicles her emotional journey from despair to hope, rejection to redemption, and self-hate to self-love, one man at a time. In candid detail, she relates what it is like to be trapped in the torturous cycle of love addiction—what it’s like to be forever searching, needing, obsessing, scheming, and agonizing for love, suffering from a hunger that never ceases—and what it takes to break free of that cycle. An intimate, soul-baring tale that sheds much-needed light on one of the least understood and talked about addictions, Insatiable is the story of one woman’s journey through the hellish, the humiliating, and the humbling in her single-minded pursuit of the most addictive drug of all: love.
This book is the story of L. J. Shwartz's journey from childhood through physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; years of sexual addiction; and subsequent recovery in his early forties. About the Author L. J. Schwartz resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, with his wife and two pugs. He is currently sponsoring other addicts with their recovery. He also created and monitors an internet website for sex addiction: www.recoverymonologue.com
HIGH - On LOVE & ADDICTION follows the relationship between two women. During the relationship, it is discovered that one of the women is addicted to crack cocaine. After years of dealing with the addiction, April runs away to another state. When tragedy occurs, it brings the two back together. The book chronicles the ups and downs of the relationship and Jeanie's struggle to get clean.
Everyone makes mistakes in relationships at one time or another. Sometimes they learn from those mistakes. Other times, they return to those behaviors and cycle through failed relationship after failed relationship. Sometimes those behaviors become an addiction to love that may leave a person feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, lonely, or worse. Lesbian Love Addiction: Understanding the Urge to Merge and How to Heal When Things go Wrong makes visible the elements of love addiction that many lesbians suffer from. Love addiction for lesbians comes in many forms. Some struggle by sexually acting out and others are serial relationship junkies, jumping from one relationship into the next. Some are addicted to the high of falling in love and once that wears off don’t know how to handle the day-to-day realities of a committed relationship. Some are even addicted to fantasy and intrigue, while others are love avoidants and sexual anorexics. Love avoidants may be able to get into a relationship but once they are fully committed, struggle with feeling smothered. Others may avoid intimate or sexual relationships all together, becoming sexually anorexic. Some may even vacillate between all of these. The underlying component and common denominator in all of these scenarios is the “Urge to Merge.” Lesbian Love Addiction is designed to help ameliorate at least part of this problem. Lauren D. Costine offers insight for lesbians, bisexual women in relationships with women, queer women, and more specifically, any woman who loves women, as well as their family and friends, and health care professionals, into the psychology of lesbian love addiction. It will give those who struggle with and suffer from love addiction ways to understand, cope, and heal from this debilitating addiction. It will give those who work with this population new tools to use to do this more effectively. Mostly, it will help lesbians understand their relationship failures and how to heal from problems associated with them, so they may grow and cultivate happier, more fulfilling connections in the future.
A psychologist and bestselling author redefines love and sex addiction as a spectrum disorder, and offers a new approach for healing. For anyone who has wondered Why does everyone else seem to be able to make romantic relationships work, and I can’t? What’s wrong with me? Why is love so hard? Psychologist and bestselling memoirist Kerry Cohen is all too familiar with the questions she often hears from her clients—and has asked herself. Even though sex and love are some of the most universal, sought-after experiences we have, many of us lack the tools and understanding to approach them in a healthy way. Without knowing it, many people struggling with sex and love actually fall somewhere on the spectrum of sex and love addiction (SLA). Sex and love addiction is still wildly misunderstood. It’s shrouded in secrecy and shame, and many counselors lack the training to address it—leaving people who need help without resources. Yet SLA isn’t a binary of you are or you aren’t, rather, it’s a spectrum. Kerry Cohen knows this all too well as both a therapist and someone who identifies on the SLA spectrum. Based on research and her own clinical experience, Crazy for You dives into SLA and provides an inclusive framework for understanding relationships, along with practical exercises and advice for self-assessment, discovery, and healing: Part one explains the sex and love addiction spectrum, helping you determine where you fall on it and how you got there Part two introduces strategies for breaking the spell of sex and love addiction, like behavior modifications and self-awareness techniques Part three teaches you how to navigate healthy, safe, and fulfilling relationships
Shares the author's story of his brushes with the law and addictions to heroin and alcohol, tracing his complicated journey toward a recovery marked by a run for political office and his rise to an internationally respected gang interventionist.
D'Anne Burwell's smart, athletic son-raised in a loving and prosperous home-begins abusing OxyContin as a teenager, and within a year drops out of college, walks out of rehab, and lands homeless on the streets of Boulder. Struggling with fear, guilt, and a desperate need to protect her son, D'Anne grapples with her husband's anger and her daughter's depression as the family disease of addiction impacts them all. She discovers the terrifying links between prescription-drug abuse and skyrocketing heroin use. And she comes to understand that to save her child she must step back and allow him to fight for his own soul. SAVING JAKE gives voice to the devastation shared by the families of addicts, and provides vital hope. Above all, it is a powerful personal story of love and redemption.
'An honest and deeply chilling account of what it's like to suffer from a compulsion to look for love in what are most definitely the wrong places' Elle For Sue Silverman, the wrong places to look for love include: At the end of a phone, when a stranger calls her college dorm late night and asks what she's wearing. On a blue leather couch, with a senator, while an intern on Capital Hill. In the back of a military truck, with a paratrooper, when hitching a ride across a desert on holiday. And still years later, in Room #213 of the Rainbow Motel, where she goes every Thursday lunchtime for routine sex with Rick (unbeknownst to Husband 2) ... In Love Sick, her unflinching memoir of her 28 days of treatment in a clinic for female sex addicts, Sue revisits her past behaviour as she learns to put her demons behind her and discover what love really means.
Dear Heroin: A Memoir of Goodbyes is a powerful book that tells the story of Linda, her son, and the fight to save him from his heroin addiction. Linda walks with her son through his darkness and her own, with nights filled with fear as he relapses time and time again. When he dies by suicide, one horrific journey ends and a new one begins: an unending journey of loss whose pain has no words. A journey no mother ever plans to undertake. But with the support of God, family, and friends, Linda finds something she desperately needs: hope. Within that hope, she finds the strength to persevere and discovers a vibrant richness she didn't possess before. Linda becomes a beacon of light for others, especially parents walking this same path. Dear Heroinis an inspirational tale of life, death, and finding new life again.
My new fianc�e Betty and I were sitting on the couch, watching the Westminster Kennel Club dog show when she looked over at me and casually said, "My first orgasm came from a dog." As I sat there stunned, trying to control my reactions and collect myself, I had two immediate thoughts: 1. Now I know why my dog likes her better. 2. I wish this were the worst thing she'd ever told me. And so begins the descent into the crazy improbable world of Warlizard, an average guy with an exceptional life. With no excuses and no apologies, Warlizard lives his life by one simple rule - "If opportunity knocks, answer the door." Gulf War Veteran, womanizer and serial troublemaker, sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses, but his stories are outlandish, extreme, fast-paced and funny as hell. Some actual reader feedback: - "You tell all women that story? You should wash out your mouth!" - "I think I could listen to your stories for hours." - "So you owe your marriage to the people who brought down the world trade center?" - "I have nothing else I can add or ask, except MORE STORIES." - "Holy s**t. I wish I was you." - "Man, you're an inspiration, seriously. F*** Tucker Max, you're the real s**t. I'm sure to remember your stories whenever there's a choice to do some crazy s**t. I used to say I'd do it for the lulz, now I'm gonna do it like WarLizard." - "You slept with another man's wife and then lied to him about it, and can say with a straight face it was the right thing to do?" - "Godda***t, I spewed out laughter too loud at work, now I have to leave because everyone knows I'm not doing s**t. F*** this is hilarious, and disconcerting, at the same time." - "He is the most interesting man in the world." - "I feel like a failure reading these stories, they're awesome." - "Your life experience makes me feel good. You good sir are somewhat of a new idol of mine. Nothing much you can do about that. Have a good day sir." - "Warlizard doesn't always drink beer, but when he does, he prefers Dos Equis." - "I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that not only a story like this exists but that a Reddit regular would be living it. And it kinda has this enthusiastic 'and then it happened...' moments in it that kinda style like you'd write fiction on the go." - "This guy is either the most creative man in the world or the most interesting man in the world. Either way..."