The founder of the first female-focused recovery program offers a groundbreaking look at alcohol and a radical new path to sobriety.

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.

When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, she embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What’s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it.

Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.

To celebrate her 14-year clean and sober birthday, Ferguson organises to take a R3.2 million Ferrari California out on a test drive for the day. Twenty minutes before she returns the car, she is involved in a spectacular car crash, during which she experiences a near-death collision.

The crash is a catalyst for a series of life-changing events. Over the following months her long-term relationship implodes in a heart-ripping showdown of betrayal and deception. She is faced with a litany of legal and financial nightmares as a result of the Ferrari being written off, while certain members of the dog-eat-dog motoring journo industry relish in her downfall. “The thing is that any fool should have been able to see that I was traumatised. Finding a Dutch lesbian in your man’s bed, writing off a R3.2-million Ferrari, hardly sleeping for a year, facing the chop at work, watching your recent Ex-Boyfriend’s penis snap, plus writing a book about a stump-legged, murder-accused athlete … Well, hello! Who wouldn’t feel a tad fucking out of control?”

After she admits herself to a clinic to address her meltdown, in her trademark gritty tell-it-all and often hilarious style, she interrogates the controversial pharma-whore psychiatric industry as she is diagnosed and medicated over her three-week stay. Ultimately Crashed sees Ferguson slowly coming to grips with the meaninglessness of outward material success as she embarks on a painful journey of introspection in search of intangible inner peace and self love in a crazy out of control world. It’s South Africa’s very own The Girl (Monk) Who Crashed (Sold) her (his) Ferrari.

Crashed is the highly anticipated final installment of the 3-part memoir trilogy, following in the steps of her South African bestsellers Smacked (2005) and Hooked (2010).

A groundbreaking work on the root causes of addiction – and how to heal it – from the legendary Dr Gabor Maté.

To heal addiction, you have to go back to the start…

Dr Gabor Maté is one of the world’s most revered thinkers on the psychology of addiction. His radical findings – based on decades of work with patients challenged by catastrophic drug addiction and mental illness – are reframing how we view all human development.

In this award-winning modern classic, Gabor Maté takes a holistic and compassionate approach to addiction, whether to alcohol, drugs, sex, money or anything self-destructive. He presents it not as a discrete phenomenon confined to a weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs through (and even underpins) our society; not as a medical ‘condition’, but rather the result of a complex interplay of personal history, emotional development and brain chemistry.

Distilling cutting-edge research from around the world, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. Blending personal stories and science with positive solutions, and written in spellbinding prose, it is a must-read that will change how you see yourself, others and the world.

10th anniversary edition, updated with new chapter on the Opioid crisis.

"My name is Samantha and I’m an alcoholic. At the time of writing, I’ve been sober for 13 years, 11 months and 16 days. And yes I still count. I promised I would never speak about it publicly until my children understood what that meant, that mommy was an alcoholic. I think they may have understood long before I did."

From Whiskey To Water is the no-holds-barred memoir by one of South Africa’s most loved radio talk show hosts, Sam Cowen. Having kept her alcohol addiction well away from the public eye for over 14 years, in this tell-all tale, Sam finds the courage to talk about her struggle with her addiction to whiskey, food and finally to a passion that saved her life – marathon swimming. Told in her characteristically hilarious dead-pan style, this is one of the bravest books you’ll read this year.

"So this is a book on how I stopped drinking? No, it’s not. It’s how I stopped drinking, started eating, became clinically severely obese, stopped eating (everything that wasn’t nailed down) and swam my way to freedom. No, it’s not. It’s actually about addiction and learning and sadness and anxiety and love and drive. It’s about channelling the unchangeable into the miraculous. It’s about dragons and learning how to put them to sleep when you can’t slay them. It’s about being my own Daenarys."

THE NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND TIMOTHEE CHALAMET.

"What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong?" - Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff's journey through his son Nic's addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets.

With haunting candour, David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3am phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. This story is a first: a teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view - a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope.

Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help.

Should marijuana be legalized? The latest Gallup poll reports that exactly half of Americans say "yes"; opinion couldn't be more evenly divided.
Marijuana is forbidden by international treaties and by national and local laws across the globe. But those laws are under challenge in several countries. In the U.S., there is no short-term prospect for changes in federal law, but sixteen states allow medical use and recent initiatives to legalize production and non-medical use garnered more than 40% support in four states. California's Proposition 19 nearly passed in 2010, and multiple states are expected to consider similar measures in the years to come.
The debate and media coverage surrounding Proposition 19 reflected profound confusion, both about the current state of the world and about the likely effects of changes in the law. In addition, not all supporters of "legalization" agree on what it is they want to legalize: Just using marijuana? Growing it? Selling it? Advertising it? If sales are to be legal, what regulations and taxes should apply? Different forms of legalization might have very different results.
Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know(r) will provide readers with a non-partisan primer about the topic, covering everything from the risks and benefits of using marijuana, to describing the current laws around the drug in the U.S. and abroad. The authors discuss the likely costs and benefits of legalization at the state and national levels and walk readers through the "middle ground" of policy options between prohibition and commercialized production. The authors also consider how marijuana legalization could personally impact parents, heavy users, medical users, drug traffickers, and employers.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

We are all addicted in some way. When we learn to identify our addiction, embrace our brokenness, and surrender to God, we begin to bring healing to ourselves and our world. In Breathing Under Water, Richard Rohr shows how the gospel principles in the Twelve Steps can free anyone from addiction - from an obvious dependence on alcohol or drugs to the more common but less visible addiction that we all have to sin. 'A must-read for any person who recognizes the need to go "inward" on their soul's journey to question what their relationship is with God, themselves, and others.' The Cord 'Rohr is a perfect writer on the subject of the 12 Steps. His easy-to-read book is essentially a commentary on each of the steps, with twelve chapters and a postscript that concisely tackles the big religious questions of human suffering, suffering with which addicts and their families are intimately acquainted. Jesus, Rohr answers, is no stranger to suffering . . . This is a good book for those in recovery from addiction and those who love them. Publishers Weekly 'Richard Rohr continues to guide us to greater wholeness . . . his books have helped countless souls, especially those who struggle with issues of brokenness and seek transformation.' National Catholic Reporter

Brent Meersman’s memoir of a humble yet eccentric upbringing in a Milnerton, Cape Town, flat in the 1970’s and 1980’s reads as a stirring eulogy to his schizophrenic mother, yet also as a vivid snapshot in time.

His adoring mother, a horse-loving artist, received only rudimentary treatment and Brent, his brother and father had to look to each other for support. His father battled alcoholism and unemployment, at one point taking the whole family to Belgium, where he had found work, only for them to return a year later, defeated. Traversing a home environment constantly on high alert for something to go wrong, waiting for his mother’s fragile mental stability to shatter, not finding support in his father, whose drinking and absences from home took a punishing toll on the family, bred in the author an almost heroic resilience.

This delicate yet brutal memoir, filled with wry humour, will resonate with many readers.

You will find a real life, gritty account of drug addiction in the pages of Rocks – One Man’s Climb from Drugs to Dreams.

Set in the leafy suburbs of Joburg in the 90s, and at the height of the Johannesburg Rave Culture, this book brings to life the agonising heartache of the drug addicted Marco Broccardo, and that of his family members including the dirty details of the daily life of an addict – the close encounters with the law, moments of insanity and rock bottom desperation. But amidst all the despair, there is a moment of liberation and hope. Hope that addiction can be beaten through the right decisions and the over-arching idea of love.

This book will take you on a journey – from the despair of being rock bottom to the elation of the mountain-tops of Kilimanjaro.

These stories describe the radical journey of creating a life with purpose, hope, and belonging. In Finding Our Way Home, Killian Noe draws from her experience as co-founder and program director at Samaritan Inns, an organization serving addicted and homeless men and women. Reading these stories can lead you to awareness of your own addictions and divine love, a journey that can lead you home. 92 Pages.

When a family member drinks to excess, the repercussions for the health and well-being of all involved are profound and long-lasting. While it has always been accepted that alcoholism is a major factor in family distress, today there is a clearer understanding of how alcohol problems may be implicated in family upheaval and breakdown. Definitions of alcoholism are also more sophisticated, and the problem may be labelled as hazardous, harmful or dependent drinking. However, the victims of alcohol-fuelled hatred, anger, abuse, fear, neglect and threats do not care about the label. All they focus on is survival. A victim of drunken assault by a family member does not care whether or not the perpetrator is sick, bad or crazy - the hurt and is still the same, no matter what the label. This book looks at how to deal with the damage done to families by alcohol problems, and how to move on, even if the alcoholic denies the problem. Topics include: * definitions of alcoholism - is alcoholism a 'disease'? * dealing with denial in the alcoholic * recognizing how complex family dynamics may contribute to alcohol problems * 'coping strategies' such as enabling (accepting unacceptable behaviour) * recognising and dealing with negative emotions eg defiance and deep resentment * types of problems for family members - mental health, personality issues * coping with violence, emotional and physical * dealing with money worries and other practical issues * protecting any children * changing the status quo and dealing with resistance * how to leave if you need to

The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller

This is the age of addiction, a condition so epidemic, so all encompassing and ubiquitous that unless you are fortunate enough to be an extreme case, you probably don't know that you have it.

What unhealthy habits and attachments are holding your life together? Are you unconsciously dependent on food? Bad relationships? A job that doesn't fulfill you? Numb, constant perusal of your phone, looking for what?

My qualification for writing this book is not that I am better than you, it's that I am worse. I am an addict, addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, money, love and fame.

The program in Recovery has given Russell Brand freedom from all addictions and it will do the same for you.

This system offers nothing less than liberation from self-centredness, a new perspective, freedom from the illusion of suffering for anyone who is willing to take the necessary steps.