Is addiction a disease, a sin, a sign of hypersensitivity, a personal failing, or a unique resource for the creative mind? However it is defined, addiction can have devastating consequences, often shattering lives, sundering families, causing impoverishment, and even triggering suicide. Yet it can also be a source of inspiration. In these frank essays, leading American and Canadian writers explore their surprisingly diverse personal experiences with this complex phenomenon, candidly recounting what happened when alcohol, heroin, smoking, food, gambling, or sex -- sometimes in combination -- took over their lives.

This book will lead you through a process of identifying and then improving who you really are. By applying the teachings, you can become more centered and grounded, affording you a greater effectiveness at meditation, prayer or any other spiritual work. Use it as a daily guide to keep you on the path to success in your physical and spiritual life.

In this exquisitely written memoir, poet Patrick Lane describes his raw and tender emergence at age sixty from a lifetime of alcohol and drug addiction. He spent the first year of his sobriety close to home, tending his garden, where he cast his mind back over his life, searching for the memories he'd tried to drown in vodka. Lane has gardened for as long as he can remember, and his garden's life has become inseparable from his own. A new bloom on a plant, a skirmish among the birds, the way a tree bends in the wind, and the slow, measured change of seasons invariably bring to his mind an episode from his eventful past. "What the Stones Remember " is the emerging chronicle of Lane's attempt to face those memories, as well as his new self--to rediscover his life. In this powerful and beautifully written book, Lane offers readers an unflinching and unsentimental account of coming to one's senses in the presence of nature.