Is a smoking, alcohol, food, gambling, Internet, drug, or sex addiction holding you back from getting what you want most? Over the past twenty-five years, renowned addiction therapist Dr. Frederick Woolverton has used his dynamic, empathetic approach to help thousands of addicts achieve long-term recovery--including himself. He sees the specific habit as less important than the underlying chaos and fear that motivate the urge to soothe ourselves with bad habits. The solution, he has found, requires only a better understanding of yourself and a change in attitude.
Using real patient examples as well as research and his own experience, Dr. Woolverton and coauthor and former patient Susan Shapiro show how to thrive without self-medicating. Woolverton's specific instructions do not require an expensive therapist, rehab, a twelve-step program, or a higher power (though he does make readers aware of those viable options). Let him help you beat your addiction. When you conquer a toxic habit, you are leaving room for something beautiful to take its place.

It has been ten years since Rachael Keogh was catapulted into the public consciousness, when a shocking image of her needle-ravaged arms - skin burnt from injecting heroin into her wasted veins - made front pages around the country. Desperate for help, she made a public appeal to get one of 27 detox beds in Ireland so that she could reclaim her life from the drugs that had ravaged it. What followed was an extraordinary story of grit and determination as she embarked on her recovery journey. Her story became an instant bestseller and has resonated with readers ever since. This edition contains a new introduction from Rachael where she reflects on her story and considers what has changed for her and in the drugs culture in Ireland over the last decade. 'The best book by far about the drugs explosion in Dublin' Irish Independent 'This book should be on the school curriculum' Evening Echo

It's 1953 in Southern California, Patty is five years old, and her mother hasn't been home in two days. A police officer eventually arrives and takes Patty and her brothers to juvenile hall-their mother has been drinking again. Twenty-eight years later, Patty herself is an alcoholic mother to three children. Divorced and homeless, she soon realizes that she can't support her children with her job cleaning houses, so she accepts the offer of a man who works at the gas station: she'll have sex with him for money. For the next seventeen years, Patty lives a double life as a sex worker. Though she supports her family with the money she makes, she struggles to be the parent she wants to be, until she realizes she has become just like her own mother: an alcoholic who doesn't give her children what they need. When Patty gets sober, her life begins to change. She finds healing through therapy, spirituality, community, and, most importantly, speaking the truth to her children. Powerful and insightful, Patty's story is proof that we all are capable of healing ourselves-and that forgiveness can transform our lives completely.

Research and clinical experiences show that people engaging in drug addiction for some years usually embrace severe mental illnesses including schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Schizophrenia usually occurs in patients with prolonged use of amphetamine and hallucinogens. Borderline personality disorder commonly happens in female addicts who have experienced abandonment and childhood abuse. On the one hand, drug addiction can be used to cope with symptoms of severe mental illness. On the other hand, prolonged drug addiction can also induce severe mental illness. A close look into individuals with chronic drug addiction usually review that they encounter suffering, hardship and traumas. There are two types of traumas encountered by people with drug addiction. The first one is trauma before drug addiction and substance abuse. Many of them may have suffered through abuse, oppression and abandonment in their lives. Another one is drug led traumas because of psychosocial deprivation and medical problems induced by chronic addiction. In this book, apart from describing a comprehensive model in understanding and interpreting the complexity of trauma, mental illness and drug addiction, this model is applied and illustrated in clients with borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia, drug addiction and those who have experience different forms of trauma. Related psychosocial interventions are also thoroughly discussed.

With an easy three-step plan, Mindful Drinking: How To Break Up With Alcohol is here to help the 64% of Brits who want to drink less without giving up completely. Discover how to cultivate a new, healthy and more mindful relationship with alcohol. Journalist Rosamund Dean combines scientific expertise with practical advice in a game-changing three step guide: The Problem, The Incentive, and The Plan. By following this guide you will learn the benefits of drinking less - drinking less will improve your mood, your skin, your sex-drive, your bank balance and your body as well as reduce stress and anxiety. Whether you are sober-curious, or just want to cut down - Mindful Drinking: How To Break Up With Alcohol shows not only why you should, but also how you can, in a way that will change your life forever. What readers have been saying about Mindful Drinking: How to Break Up With Alcohol: 'Brilliant book; realistic and creating real positive change' 'Would highly recommend for anyone who is concerned about the amount they drink, but doesn't want to completely stop.' 'A brilliantly straightforward and realistic approach to cutting down sensibly.' 'Really broke a cycle for me of just drinking every weekend.'

Between alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, pornography, gambling, and eating disorders, fully 25% of the population of the United States is addicted to something. Those addictions are taking a massive physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial toll on individuals, families, and communities. The problem can feel insurmountable. But there is a solution, at once ancient and supported by the latest in neuroscientific research. With an honest assessment of the facts, yet always reaching out toward hopeful solutions, counselors Chip Dodd and Stephen James explain what addiction really is, how it works, and why it is so damaging to our hearts, souls, minds, and relationships. They then take us beyond mere coping techniques that allow us to function to the real solution--restoring our broken relationship with our Creator so that we can rediscover how to live fully the way we were created to live. Each chapter includes the personal story of a recovering addict, told from the addict's point of view. The authors also include a list of books, organizations, workshops, and treatment centers people can turn to for help along the road to lasting recovery.

Are you in a significant relationship with someone who has an addiction? Are you frustrated with watching your addicted loved ones destroy their lives? Whether your relationship is with a family member, friend, or partner, caring about an addicted person can feel like a nightmare. If someone you love is abusing drugs or alcohol or is engaging in addictive behaviors such as disordered eating, problem gambling, smoking, Internet addiction, a controlling relationship, or compulsive overspending, there is hope. Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Workbook will show you how your life can improve by helping you to understand what will and won't work in your relationship with your addicted loved one--and in your relationship with yourself. As you become familiar with the top ten survival tips for loving someone with an addiction, you will learn how to offer healthier and more effective choices to your addicted loved one. Once you do this, you will feel a sense of realistic control in your life. In turn, this will increase your self-respect, which is, without a doubt, the most important thing you can change about yourself.

INAUGURAL LILLY'S LIBRARY BOOK CLUB PICK FROM LILLY SINGH 'I really loved this book' Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind 'Patel writes with the wisdom and compassion of an old soul' Celeste Ng 'Utterly unforgettable' Nikesh Shukla 'A love letter to R&B' Susie Yang, author of White Ivy 'Something everyone can relate to' Lilly Singh, author of How to Be a Bawse 'A soulful and seductive love song of a book' Nancy Jooyoun Kim, author of The Last Story of Mina Lee 'Absolutely loved it' Luan Goldie, author of Nightingale Point 'It made me laugh and cry' Kavita Puri, author of Partition Voices 'Refreshing...Defiant...Consistently surprising.' The New York Times Book Review Lost in the jungle of Los Angeles, Akash Amin is filled with shame. Shame for liking men. Shame for wanting to be a songwriter. Shame for not being like his perfect brother. Shame for his alcoholism. And most of all, shame for what happened with the first boy he ever loved. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash must return to Illinois to confront his demons and the painful memory of a sexual awakening that became a nightmare. Akash's mum, Renu, is also plagued by guilt. She had it all: doting husband, beautiful house, healthy sons. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband's death approaches Renu can't stop wondering if she chose the wrong life thirty-five years ago and should have stayed in London with her first love. Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they've since created. By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of '90s R&B, Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world.

At the age of 44, renowned comedian Richard Lewis found himself on a gurney in the ER, toxic with alcohol, and hallucinating from excess cocaine use. The same neuroses and dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and inspired his best material had, it seemed, turned on him.
How he got there, how he finally got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis are the subjects of this very funny, deeply honest, inspiring, but very untreacly book. "USA Today" called it "candid and inspirational.... A journey through Lewis' personal Inferno to eventual salvation."

IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award GOLD Winner in Autobiography & Memoir A remarkable story of love, loss, and hope Author Tyra Manning learned that her husband had been killed in the Vietnam War from her psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic, where she had been hospitalized for clinical depression. After years of battling addiction and depression, and coping with the tragic loss of her father at a very early age, Tyra's worst fear had come true. Larry had been shot down over the Laotian jungle while flying a top-secret mission, just two weeks before their daughter's second birthday. In this beautifully written, poignant memoir, Tyra Manning recounts how she was able to persevere in the face of devastating loss. With courage, love, and determination, she overcame her grief and fulfilled promises she made to Larry before he left for Vietnam. She ultimately earned a doctorate of education from the University of Kansas and became one of the nation's top school superintendents. When Tyra received a call from the air force in 2006, she was able to keep one last promise to Larry. His remains had finally been excavated after thirty-five years, and she was able to honor his wish to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Where the Water Meets the Sand explores themes of loss, depression, addiction, courage, and love and offers hope to individuals and families who have also dealt with the loss of someone close to them.