Nick Charles MBE is a pioneer in treating alcohol dependency. As the founder of both the Chaucer Clinic and the Gainsborough Foundation, he was the first person to be honoured by the Queen 'for services to people with alcohol problems' and his work - over four decades - has helped tens of thousands of people. But Nick's decorated success overlays an extraordinary and unforgettable personal journey, for Nick was once an alcoholic vagrant sleeping rough on the streets of London. In 50 Years of Hard Road, Nick details his time in the abyss of alcohol addiction; a period that despatched relationships, his health, his career, and so much more. Forced to live on the streets for four years, Nick recalls the tough times, the characters he met, and the ever-present call of alcohol, but also how he slowly built up two carrier bags-worth of painstaking research into alcohol and its effects on his fellow man. It was through the documents in these carrier bags that Nick's life was to change forever when, in the mid-1970s, he was taken under the wing of a doctor who cared for those on skid row. This dedicated medic recognised the treasure trove of information Nick had developed. 50 Years of Hard Road is a remarkable, uplifting, and often humorous story of one man's journey from the depths of life-crushing alcohol dependency, to running alcohol clinics and programmes across the country. It describes an incredible life filled with high points, low points, and amazing adventures in-between.

This is the basic text of the Narcotics Anonymous fellowship. Just as with alcoholism, there is no 'cure' for narcotic addiction, but recovery is possible through a program adapted from the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" of Alcoholics Anonymous. This book, written by addicts, for addicts, about addicts, sets forth the spiritual principles of Narcotics Anonymous that hundreds of thousands of addicts have used in recovery. Intended as a complete textbook for every addict seeking recovery, Narcotics Anonymous describes the N.A. program and how it works. It includes the "N.A. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions", as well as many personal stories of men and women who have found freedom from addiction through Narcotics Anonymous.

A great story must entertain, inform or inspire, and this book does all three. Susan Waits has created a dramatic narrative with authentic characters that draw breath, laugh, cry, teach and learn in vivid settings drawn from a deep well of personal experience. The plot reflects the inexplicable and serendipitous twists and turns of two women's lives as they come face to face with their addiction to alcohol. Implicitly revealed are the iconic twelve steps to recovery in the illustration and interplay among personal intention, forgiveness, surrender and love. Claire Danner's life was one call for "another round" after another. Finally, at the age of sixty-eight, after decades of broken hearts and broken promises, and a body ailing from self-abuse, she reluctantly succumbs to her family's insistence to enter rehab. There she must face and conquer the demons long suppressed by her self-administered anesthetic. In the face of failing health and aged despair, will she emerge from this crucible with another chance at love and life? From childhood Grace was close to her "Momma Claire," and as a young adult studying art at Rhodes College, she had an unconscious propensity to overindulge. She wondered at times if she was on a collision course with the same fate as her grandmother, a question that would unexpectedly and suddenly be put to a life-struggling test. The parallel journeys of grandmother and granddaughter weave together and culminate in a joint pilgrimage that reveals a final, life-altering surprise.

Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life 'Brilliant' - Stella Duffy Millions of people worry that drinking is affecting their health, yet are unwilling to seek change because of the misery and stigma associated with alcoholism and recovery. They fear drinking less will be boring, difficult and involve deprivation, and significant lifestyle changes. This Naked Mind offers a new solution. Packed with surprising insight into the reasons we drink, it will open your eyes to the startling role of alcohol in our culture. Annie Grace brilliantly weaves psychological, neurological, cultural, social and industry factors with her extraordinarily candid journey resulting in a must read for anyone who drinks. This book, without scare tactics, pain or rules, gives you freedom from alcohol. By addressing causes rather than symptoms it is a permanent solution rather than lifetime struggle. It removes the psychological dependence allowing you to easily drink less (or stop drinking). Annie's clarity, humor and unique ability to blend original research with riveting storytelling ensures you will thoroughly enjoy the process. In a world defined by 'never enough' Annie takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of alcohol and specifically the connection between alcohol and pleasure. She dispels the cultural myth that alcohol is a vital part of life and demonstrates how regaining control over alcohol is not only essential to personal happiness and fulfilment but also to ending the heartache experienced by millions as a result of second-hand drinking. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to the life you have been waiting for.

I explore my intertwining of spiritual/soul with my ego/ human make up. Even with opulence due to the family invention of Vaseline, I didn't have an easy life.
Scrutinizing my ancestry to uncover our origin of child abuse, I describe the abuse didn't start with me. I discuss a belief in reincarnation, which started with a near death life changing experience at age thirteen. In conclusion, I discuss behaviors used in the maintenance of my serene, loving attitude. My attitude has been obtained though my difficult life lessons, which are now a transformed powerful, positive force.

The book acquaints the reader with new scientific data showed that alcohol in moderate doses is very effective remedy, which reduces stress, risk of cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, mitigates depressive state and increases lifespan.

Millions of us suffer from addiction, including psychiatrist and recovering alcoholic Carl Erik Fisher. But where does this centuries-old behaviour come from and how should we treat it? As a young doctor, Carl Erik Fisher came face to face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Now, in The Urge, he investigates the history of this condition; how we have struggled to define, treat, and control it; and how broader understanding and compassion could change people's lives. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician's urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced view of one of society's most intractable challenges.

Addiction is seemingly inexplicable. From the outside, it can look like wilful, arrogant self-destruction; from the inside, it can feel as inevitable and insistent as a heartbeat. It is possible to describe, but hard to explore. Yet in The Recovering, Leslie Jamison draws on her own life and the lives of addicts of extraordinary talent - John Cheever, John Berryman, Jean Rhys and Amy Winehouse among them - to take us inside the experience of addiction, exposing the contours, edges and wholes of an intoxicated life. Part memoir, part group biography, part literary history and part definitive analysis of cultural and social considerations of addiction, The Recovering is a significant moment in the history of post-war narrative non-fiction.

This group of essays is written to provide a series of suggestions to Native people who seek to deal with alcoholism from the perspective of their unique heritages and with an understanding that the pressures to which Native traditions and societies have been subjected may trigger dysfunctional behavior, such as excessive drinking. In doing so, I link the work, life, and example of Handsome Lake, an Iroquois leader of the 18th/early 19th century to strategies of recovery that are geared towards contemporary Native people. The goal is to provide a useful set of tools and perspectives regarding Native people and their dysfunctional behavior, such as alcoholism. This section concludes with discussions of how the method can be used in both therapy and in self-help groups. I present this book as one way in which Native people may be able to embrace their cultural heritage as they seek to recover from alcoholism. Inspired by the example and teachings of Handsome Lake, I have updated his perspectives and explained them in terms of modern sociological and psychological theories. By doing so, a strategy of recovery for Native people living in the 21th century is offered.