Book picks similar to
Lesbian Love Addiction: Understanding the Urge to Merge and How to Heal When Things Go Wrong by Lauren D. Costine
self-help
00-non-fiction
addiction
anthropology
See Me
Hailey Rodgers - 2019
So why is it that so many young adults identify themselves as unsatisfied or unhappy with their lives? There is a misconception that in order to be happy you must first be successful. In fact, the opposite is true: you must be happy first in order to be successful. This raises the question: How do I become happy? The answer: Discover your authentic self. See Me is about the importance of living authentically as a young adult. While young adults tend to talk about authenticity, it can actually be the hardest time in your life to feel confident in yourself. This book is a tool to help you stay true to who you are amidst the pressure to conform to societal norms. It aims to inspire young adults through guiding principles and the incredible stories of others who comprehend the value non-conformity and consistently work to live an authentic life.
The Things You Would Have Said: The Chance to Say What You Always Wanted Them to Know
Jackie Hooper - 2012
Friends fall out of touch, loved ones pass away, or sometimes the courage required is simply lacking-and thank-yous, regrets, feelings, and secrets are left unshared. In 2009, Jackie Hooper came up with a way to help people recapture a moment that had once passed them by-she began asking them to write letters.Based on the popular blog The Things You Would Have Said,, this extraordinary collection of letters brings together the moving, surprising, and inspiring stories of ordinary people. By turns heartwarming, funny, sad, and wise, the letters showcase a remarkable range of voices and subjects. From the indignant young boy urging his bully to become "a better man," to the woman apologizing to the girl she picked on in high school, to a man thanking the woman who protected his family from Nazis, the letters bring together an outpouring of emotion that is as compelling as it is cathartic.
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
David Sheff - 2007
Before Nic 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. David Sheff traces the first warning signs: the denial, the three a.m. phone calls—is it Nic? the police? the hospital? His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every treatment that might save his son. And he refused to give up on Nic.
The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race
Daniel Z. Lieberman - 2018
In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. Dopamine is the source of our every urge, that little bit of biology that makes an ambitious business professional sacrifice everything in pursuit of success, or that drives a satisfied spouse to risk it all for the thrill of someone new. Simply put, it is why we seek and succeed; it is why we discover and prosper. Yet, at the same time, it’s why we gamble and squander. From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not the having that matters. It’s getting something—anything—that’s new. From this understanding—the difference between possessing something versus anticipating it—we can understand in a revolutionary new way why we behave as we do in love, business, addiction, politics, religion – and we can even predict those behaviors in ourselves and others. In The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and why the brains of liberals and conservatives really are different.
Together, Closer: The Art and Science of Intimacy in Friendship, Love, and Family
Giovanni Frazzetto - 2017
Intimacy is that moment when our true identity is revealed to another, when traumas, fears, and ambitions are shared. Through the ordinary stories of eight relationships, Giovanni Frazzetto has woven an extraordinary narrative of togetherness. He shares the details of romantic partners trapped in a long cycle of attraction and rejection, a single woman who finds herself deep in a fictional relationship with a boyfriend she has invented out of frustration with her love life, and a couple absorbed in a years-long clandestine affair. But intimacy can also extend beyond romantic encounters: coping with the loss of a loved one, dealing with overbearing or emotionally distant parents, or celebrating the joys and comforts of our dearest friends. In Together, Closer, Frazzetto unravels the components of intimacy in all of these relationships, illuminating the mysteries, challenges, and pleasures of intimacy through a brilliant mix of storytelling and science.
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good
Adrienne Maree Brown - 2019
Drawing on the black feminist tradition, including Audre Lourde’s invitation to use the erotic as power and Toni Cade Bambara’s exhortation that we make the revolution irresistible, the contributors to this volume take up the challenge to rethink the ground rules of activism. Writers including Cara Page of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice, Sonya Renee Taylor, founder of This Body Is Not an Apology, and author Alexis Pauline Gumbs cover a wide array of subjects— from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—creating new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own.Building on the success of her popular Emergent Strategy, brown launches a new series of the same name with this volume, bringing readers books that explore experimental, expansive, and innovative ways to meet the challenges that face our world today. Books that find the opportunity in every crisis!
Drop the Rock--The Ripple Effect: Using Step 10 to Work Steps 6 and 7 Every Day
Fred H. - 2015
Learning what it means to fully surrender character defects frees you to make amends with Steps 8 and 9, realize the Big Book’s “Promises,” and move on to Step 10.In this new follow-up resource, Fred H. explores what he calls “the ripple effect” that can be created by using Step 10 to practice Steps 6 and 7 every day and avoid picking up “the rock” again. Drawing on his years of lecturing on the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, he reveals Step 10 as the natural culmination of working the previous Steps. providing a crash course on renewing your recovery program through the daily practice of Twelve Step principles.Like its predecessor, Drop the Rock—The Ripple Effect provides multiple perspectives from people successfully working a Twelve Step Program, showing Step 10 as a key to a sober life free of fear and resentment and filled with serenity and gratitude.Fred H. has worked in the field of addiction and recovery for over three decades and is the director of the retreat center for a leading addiction treatment program. He is a popular international speaker on the Big Book and the principles of the Twelve Steps.
Hiding Out: A Memoir of Drugs, Deception, and Double Lives
Tina Alexis Allen - 2018
Sir John supported his large family running a successful travel agency that specialized in religious tours to the Holy Land and the Vatican for pious Catholics.But his daughter, Tina, was no sweet and innocent Catholic girl. A smart-mouthed high school basketball prodigy, she harbored a painful secret: she liked girls. When Tina was eighteen her father accidently discovered the truth about her sexuality. Instead of dragging her to the family priest and lecturing her with tearful sermons about sin and damnation, her father shocked her with his honest response. He, too, was gay.The secret they shared about their sexuality brought father and daughter closer, and the two became trusted confidants and partners in a relationship that eventually spiraled out of control. Tina and Sir John spent nights dancing in gay clubs together, experimenting with drugs, and engaging in sex with their respective partners in public places—all while keeping the rest of their family in the dark.Outside of their wild clandestine escapades, Sir John made Tina his heir apparent at the travel agency. Drawn deeper into the business, Tina soon became suspicious of her father’s frequent business trips, his multiple passports and cache of illegal documents, and the briefcases full of cash that mysteriously appeared and quickly vanished. Digging deeper, she uncovered a disturbing facet beyond the stunning double-life of the father she thought she knew.A riveting and cinematic true tale stranger and twistier than fiction, Hiding Out is an astonishing story of self-discovery, family, secrets, and the power of the truth to set us free.
Forward: A Memoir
Abby Wambach - 2016
Abby shows us by example how to overcome problems and live a happier, braver life." —Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, New York Times Bestselling author of Lean In “This is the best memoir I’ve read by an athlete since Andre Agassi’s Open. I could not put it down, and you will not want it to end.” —Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and TakeAbby Wambach has always pushed the limits of what is possible. At age seven she was put on the boys’ soccer team. At age thirty-five she would become the highest goal scorer—male or female—in the history of soccer, capturing the nation’s heart with her team’s 2015 World Cup Championship. Called an inspiration and “badass” by President Obama, Abby has become a fierce advocate for women’s rights and equal opportunity, pushing to translate the success of her team to the real world.As she reveals in this searching memoir, Abby’s professional success often masked her inner struggle to reconcile the various parts of herself: ferocious competitor, daughter, leader, wife. With stunning candor, Abby shares her inspiring and often brutal journey from girl in Rochester, New York, to world-class athlete. Far more than a sports memoir, Forward is gripping tale of resilience and redemption—and a reminder that heroism is, above all, about embracing life’s challenges with fearlessness and heart.
I Never Knew I Had a Choice: Explorations in Personal Growth [With Infotrac]
Gerald Corey - 1983
This book is designed to help students expand their self-awareness as they explore the significant choices available to them in the various dimensions of life. As students work through the self-inventories, exercises, and activities and read the first-person accounts of the choices real people have made in response to challenging life events, they will begin to explore themselves, their lives, and their beliefs and attitudes in a way that is personally empowering.
The Parallel Process: Growing Alongside Your Adolescent or Young Adult Child in Treatment
Krissy Pozatek - 2010
However, just as the teenager is embarking on a journey of self-discovery, skill-development, and emotional maturation, so parents too need to use this time to recognize that their own patterns may have contributed to their family’s downward spiral. This is The Parallel Process.Using case studies garnered from her many years as an adolescent and family therapist, Krissy Pozatek shows parents of pre-teens, adolescents, and young adults how they can help their children by attuning to emotions, setting limits, not rushing to their rescue, and allowing them to take responsibility for their actions, while recognizing their own patterns of emotional withdrawal, workaholism, and of surrendering their lives and personalities to parenting. As such, The Parallel Process is an essential primer for all parents, whether of troubled teens or not, who are seeking to help the family stay and grow together as they negotiate the potentially difficult teenage years.
Peter in Flight
Paul Michael Peters - 2013
He can tell you everything there is to know about successful trade show programs. He can tell you stories about the thousands of people he has met, miles he has flown, hotel rooms he has stayed in, and ways to work the system to your advantage when you travel. But he can't tell the woman he loves how he feels. Think "Up in the Air meets Planes, Trains and Automobiles..". Based on his own extensive business trips, Paul Michael Peters brings us this funny, bittersweet story of a traveling software salesman. Filled with wry observations and entertaining vignettes, life moves fast in this quick read about a "trade show guy" and a love he thinks he can never have.
I GOT YOU: Restoring Confidence in Love and Relationships
Rob Hill Sr. - 2013
It’s about you looking at yourself and finding ways to learn how to grow as an individual. I cannot tell you every single step you should take to get you to where you are trying to go in life. But what I can do is make sure you have enough confidence to trust your own judgments, regardless of past mistakes. I want you to understand that it’s okay to be exactly where you are right now, whether you are single or in a relationship. Appreciate where your journey is taking you, but be able to identify areas that need to change. I want you to read this book and have a better understanding of the present. I want you to know that trying to get it right is a constant process. We never arrive at a place of knowing it all. For as long as we are alive, we are challenged to grow, learn, evolve, and mature. Love is a decision, not a destination. It’s not something you stumble upon. You must choose to walk in it, give to it, and become it. Each of us travels a different path to find the love we are searching for. Some find what they are looking for instantly, while others must jump over a few hurdles before realizing they have finally found something special. In essence, we are all just working towards what we believe we deserve— our fair chance at love and happiness.
365 Days of Happiness: Because happiness is a piece of cake!
Jacqueline Pirtle - 2018
Showing that you can put in work to change your life while having fun, the practices are full of whimsy and delight. Jacqueline decided to spend every day of 2017 devoted to her own happiness. She wrote every single day about the things she does to honor her joy, and used these writings to create this 365 day step-by-step guide, so she could teach you how to shift to BE and live in a “high for life” frequency of happiness too—no matter where you are at in your life right now. She started writing these for herself, but has a little sneaky intent to touch your heart every day and initiate new learning, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom for you to get closer to your true, authentic happy self. Through light, bubbly, cheerful passages, each day teaches you to find happiness, use those sour lemons, and shift yourself into a “high for life” frequency where you can reach happiness anywhere at any time.
Forgiving Troy: A True Story of Murder, Mental Illness and Recovery
Thom Bierdz - 2009
He is a fan favorite and his book opens all of the doors and windows into his personal life of tragedy and redemption, the murder of his mother, familial mental illness, and Thom's now openly gay and proud lifestyle. Thom has forgiven his schizophrenic brother, Troy, who will spend the rest of his life in a Wisconsin state prison.