Book picks similar to
More Than A Junkie by Kayla Small


memoirs
addiction
recovery
substance-abuse

Black Tar: For the Love of Heroin


Stephen E. Crockett - 2012
    Please understand one critical feature of this book. It is a biography, hand written by the junkie in question about his life and his alone. As such it is not a piece of literary perfection. It has not been polished to perfection by a team of editors, nor was it published by a major publishing company. Black Tar: For The Love of Heroin was originally written on a legal pad as part of a twelve step program. It made its way to me, its ultimate editor, and I was amazed by the details Stephen was able to remember and capture on paper. Once I got to know him I asked him if he would work with me on his life story and he reluctantly agreed. Sensing his hesitancy I told him we would not use his name and focus on the day to day existence of a junkie as he experienced it living from fix to fix. But Stephen could be a hard person to track down and his never ending thirst for the needle made his story a hard one to tell. I spent days upon weeks crawling the downtown streets looking for him and a lot of times when I did find him I would have to buy him heroin just to get him to work with me. So, I made a deal with him, like making a deal with the devil, that if he would help me drag his biography into existence, I would buy him enough heroin to get through each and every day we worked together.One day's worth of heroin for one day's worth of storytelling. This made it easy for him to make himself available for the writing of his biography. By the time I met Stephen he was almost fifty years old and in full blown heroin psychosis. How he managed to live as long as he had was always a miracle to me. Over the course of a year and several months I pulled every story Stephen could remember from his heroin-addled brain and preserved them on paper. But I never wanted this story to be an autobiography. I wanted it to be Stephen telling his story, in his words, no matter how it might look like in the end.With these rules in place I gave him his first computer and at first he slaved over his 'hunt and peak' computer skills. But the more he wrote the more he remembered and slowly, after three long years of exchanging one day of heroin to entice him to work one day of writing, Stephen declared himself finished with the project. I read what he had written and quickly realized that active heroin junkies make terrible writers. What he had produced was basically unusable. To make a three-year writing stint something of literary value I set myself to editing what he had written. I didn't want to strip it of the style of writing that made it junkie. More than anything else I wanted to preserve his perspective, sense of pain, his defeat, his single-minded approach to heroin and to the fact he knew it was going to kill him. I think that fatalistic view of life is what hit me the hardest.To make the book easy to digest I divided it into five segments and then spread his life between the points. And that is what we ended up with. The biography of a drug addict; barely touched by an editor's pen, and filled with the dirt, muck and blood that is a junkies life.

Last Call: A Memoir


Nancy L. Carr - 2015
    I wanted to be cool. I wanted to fit in. Whatever it took.” She was attractive, popular and determined to grow up in a hurry. How would she have known that at age thirteen, during her first teenage drinking party, her life would play out in such a way that it would rule her life decisions going forward? The handsome boys and pretty girls were guzzling a certain punch, and she wanted to be like them. Tentatively, she ladled the jungle juice from the punch bowl and had her first sip of alcohol. She wanted more. It couldn’t have come at a better time. This is what she’d been searching for –relief. Instant relief. Getting drunk becomes her rite of passage as she careens through junior and senior high school caving in to peer pressure for her need to feel accepted. Through secretarial school and early jobs, her twenties are a blur. Quicker than she can take a tequila shot in a Mexican café, change her lovers weekly, and party with the dregs of society, as well as the socialites and future executives – Nancy finds a lifestyle that seems to work for her. She continues on and drinks and uses cocaine through the snows of Aspen, the desert heat of Scottsdale, the California coast and her Pennsylvania homelands, only to find herself alone and desperate in her quest for love and her own identity. Milk, she decides, has a longer shelf life than her romantic interludes. Surfer Boy, Boston Boy, Blondie Boy. Her big question becomes, who is going to marry her? As she approaches her early 30’s, she thinks getting married will fix her. “I am sitting on my couch finishing up a second bottle of Two Buck Chuck, watching Sarah Jessica Parker on “Sex and the City,” crying and wondering why I’m still single. I understand why Sarah is single. She spends too much money on shoes, and no one wants to marry a shoe whore. She had the perfect man too. She was a fool to let Aidan get away. Ever since high school the perennial question from my parents and friends was always the same, “Are you going to marry him?” It never occurred to Nancy to blame her loneliness on her beverages of choice. She’d kept her career going. She wasn’t an alcoholic. In fact, she relished hearing confessions of real alcoholics so she could assure herself that they—and not she—had a problem. Hello, Black Kettle? This is Pot calling! Terribly alone after receiving her second DUI at age 37, Nancy experiences a moment of clarity. She’s been looking for answers everywhere but the place she least wants to examine: the mirror. What glares back at her is over twenty-four years of living life in the fast lane, zooming by all the red flags. “Sitting in the jail cell I thought about hitting bottom. I could stop digging now. My life couldn’t get any worse….How could years of my free-wheeling lifestyle as a partier, mainly a social drinker, bring me to this place?” Compelled by a judge, Nancy walks into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and begins the hellacious journey of rethinking her life to finally find what she’d been searching for – her true self. Now sober for over ten years, married and with a thriving career, Nancy wants to tell other young women what she wishes someone had told her.

Too Far Gone


A.T. Micalizzi - 2018
    When she is drunk, the “monster” takes control and stops at nothing to wreak havoc on the ones she loves. Flashbacks of tragedies from her formative years cause Diane to spiral out of control. Her oldest child, Anthony, attempts to shrug off his own childhood of horrors to help his mom before the “monster” defeats her once and for all.In his personal journal, Anthony chronicles three days from hell as he battles his mom’s addiction. All of the destruction, failed rehabilitation attempts, and heartaches lead to one bloody moment. Does he save his mom in time? Or does one more drink send her too far gone?In the US, addiction is an epidemic that devastates, destroys, and kills. A portion of this book’s proceeds will be donated to national addiction foundations in an attempt to help those suffering.

The Taste of Cigarettes: A Memoir of a Heroin Addict


Jon Vreeland - 2018
     After three decades of living in the sandy suburbs of Huntington Beach, Jon Vreeland’s heroin addiction has finally destroyed his once promising music career, and estranged him from his wife and his two daughters. Now Vreeland broods over his daughter’s absence while living in his old, broken-down tour van. He and Zooey Leigh—his brand new lover and longtime junkie—sell and shoot heroin in the van. They move from place to place, from crime to crime, and rob the undeserving in a brazen attempt to escape their hypodermic reality. No matter where they go or who they stay with, they always circle back to the shores of Huntington Beach, where the dark nights are their lonely playground. But Jon isn’t meant for this life. He wants nothing more than to rid himself of this nightmare, and return to his estranged family and career. This is the story of how he began to get out.

The Cure for Alcoholism: The Medically Proven Way to Eliminate Alcohol Addiction


Roy Eskapa - 2008
    This is the first step.Featuring new and updated information and studies, including an introduction by actress Claudia Christian, the second edition of The Cure for Alcoholism delivers exactly what millions of alcoholics and families of alcoholics have been hoping for: a painless, dignified, and medically proven cure for their addiction. Backed by 82 clinical trials and research that extends back to 1964, The Sinclair Method deploys an opiate-blocking medication in a very specific way—in combination with ongoing drinking—to extinguish the addictive “software” in the brain. The de-addiction process rolls back the addictive mechanism in the brain to its original pre-addicted state—before the first drink was consumed, making this program an actual cure for alcoholism.Drs. Roy Eskapa and David Sinclair of The Sinclair Method have put together a sound scientific book that proves that with this particular method, alcoholism can be cured in more than 78 percent of patients. What’s more, the treatment avoids the dangerous withdrawal symptoms, allowing patients to detox gradually and safely while they are still drinking. This removes the need for expensive and unpleasant inpatient rehabilitation programs. Actual drinking levels and cravings automatically decrease until control over alcohol is restored. The bottom line is that patients can control their drinking or stop altogether with the simple yet powerful process outlined in The Cure for Alcoholism.Including a new introduction by actress Claudia Christian about The Sinclair Method’s impact on her life, updated trial information, and a letter explaining the treatment that can be given to doctors by patients, The Cure for Alcoholism is a revolutionary book for anyone who wants to gain control over drinking.

I Need To Stop Drinking!


Liz Hemingway - 2013
    She has experienced first-hand the devastation that alcohol can have on you. It takes over your mind and soul and takes everything it can from you, including your self- respect. Married, with three grown up daughters, Liz shares her escape from alcohol plan that has worked for her in the hope that it will help you to live the life that you always wanted for yourself and for the people that you love. Liz wants everyone who is being torn apart by alcohol to know that it is possible to finally escape from it and experience the joy and freedom for themselves. Do yourself a favour and read this book and act on it!Your life will change in so many ways for the better!You will get back your self-respect.Your friends and family will be amazed.You will save an absolute fortune.Losing weight will be so much easier!Find out how Liz managed to escape and is enjoying life so much more! You can find this freedom and happiness too. What people are saying about I Need to Stop Drinking!‘If you need to stop drinking this book will definitely give you the inspiration that will help you to become a non- drinker. Liz Hemingway describes her struggle to stop drinking in moving detail. It is quite a shocking book but ultimately uplifting and gives the problem drinker hope for a brighter future without alcohol. So if you need to stop drinking then I would highly recommend this book.’‘This book is the best hangover cure ever! I now wake up every morning feeling so happy and without that feeling of dread about how I am going to get through the day with feeling awful because I have drank too much the night before. I feel so much better mentally and physically.’‘If you need to quit drinking then this book will inspire you to do so!’Help yourself to the life that you know that you should be living. Read this book today!Connect with Liz Hemingway on Facebook. Find her page - 'I Need to Stop Drinking' for continued positive, daily support. For a free report on how to stop yourself from having a drink when you really want one please visit www.liz-hemingway.com.Please note you do not need a Kindle to buy this book you can download the Kindle app onto your phone or computer.

Addict Chick: Sex, Drugs & Rock 'N' Roll


Amanda Meredith - 2016
    At 34, Amanda Meredith had it all - A successful career, a home, a child, and everything that should have made her happy. She was also crazy in love; his name was Cage, and their love would become her first addiction—but not her last. Some would say that love destroyed her, but what she let ravage her mind, body, and soul had nothing to do with love and everything to do with a deep-seated need to destroy herself. With the prick of a needle, and a shot of methamphetamine, she lost everything- her child, her career, and she lost Cage. Her story is not for the faint of heart. Addict Chick: Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘N’ Roll is her heartbreak, her sorrow, and the story of how she fought like hell to save herself, with a little help from the Man above. In this memoir, one woman proves that no matter who you are, and no matter how far you have fallen, nobody is beyond redemption.

Suburban Junky: From Honor Roll to Heroin Addict


Jude Hassan - 2012
    Louis. For most of his life, he was an all-around normal kid. He excelled in sports and academics, and cherished his time at home with his family. It wasn’t until he turned fifteen that things went seriously wrong. While attending his first high school party, he was introduced to pot and alcohol. Needless to say, he gave in to the pressure. A month after that, he discovered heroin. The drug had just made its way into the suburban party scene, and Jude was sure that he could get away with doing it only once. He was sadly mistaken. Within a few short months, his entire life was in shambles. His fate appeared certain, but it was just the beginning.​In a series of events that leaves you grasping for the next page, Jude spares no amount of detail in his account of his near-decade long struggle with drug addiction, and the horrors he witnessed along the way.

Hands of an Angel, Mind of a Demon, Heart of a Saint: True Stories from a 10 Year Paramedic


David Chase Stone - 2017
    This tell-all story will put you on the front line of the reality of street paramedicine. From gruesome and violent encounters to making split-second decisions which may have cost a life, experience the emotional struggle our responders have to deal with on a daily basis. Through the highs and lows of his career, ten-year Paramedic David Stone doesn't hold back as he tells of the circumstances which haunted him and eventually drove him out of the career... and why it was all worth it in the end. Ride front seat with this thrill-packed memoir encompassing over a decade of true stories from the medic who experienced it.

No More Dodging Bullets: A Memoir about Faith, Love, Lessons, and Growth


Amy Herrig - 2019
    She and her father, Jerry Shults, were thriving as the owners of the Gas Pipe stores in Dallas, Texas, as well as other successful businesses, when a government lawsuit threatened to take everything—their businesses, their money, and their freedom. Accused of crimes she hadn’t committed, Amy spent the next four years fighting to stay out of prison, but that wasn’t all she had to fight along the way. When one life-altering change after another shook up Amy’s world, she gained a new perspective on herself and on what matters most in life. From an exhausting and demoralizing situation came a new outlook of gratitude, but also remorse and humility. Although Amy’s actions in the past had not all been illegal, she had let the allure of money guide her decisions rather than using her moral compass; the shocking turn of events that resulted from those decisions led to profound changes and made a lasting impact on Amy’s life.

The Secrets of Carriage H (Kindle Single)


Andrew Rosenheim - 2014
    It was the U.K.’s worst rail disaster in years. On the morning of October 5, 1999, two rush-hour commuter trains collided just outside London. Hundreds were feared dead. Though he was traveling in the front-most carriage, the novelist Andrew Rosenheim survived the crash. In “The Secrets of Carriage H,” Rosenheim recalls in heart-pounding detail the events of that day and opens up about the emotional rollercoaster that consumed him for months thereafter. Told with the rich textures of a novel and the bare heart of a memoir, “The Secrets of Carriage H” explores the unspoken consequences of survival and offers brutal, sometimes hilarious insight into the human condition. Andrew Rosenheim was born and raised in Chicago, but has lived in England for the last thirty-five years. He worked in publishing for many years at Oxford University Press and then as the Managing Director of Penguin Press. He is the author of seven novels, most recently Fear Itself and The Little Tokyo Informant. His writing has appeared in The Times, The New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, and many other publications. Married, he lives with his wife and twin daughters near Oxford and is the editor of Kindle Singles in the U.K.Cover design by Evan Twohy.

Hammered: Memoir of an Addict


Geoff Brown - 2012
    Drugs, crime and ennui pervaded every part of his day-to-day alienation. He dragged his way out of the pit without resorting to God or alcohol or any of the other crutches people commonly use. Here is his story. Pray your children don't make the same mistakes.~ ~ ~This is the 2019 expanded edition of the 2012 bestselling memoir Hammered, telling the true story of the author's twenty years plus of drug dependency and the resultant lifestyle as experienced in Australia.This new edition contains more than 20,000 extra words and gives a better insight into the emotional impact of the journey and more detail on the recovery.~ ~ ~"Fascinating, and very easy reading."~Joe Lansdale, author of the Hap & Leonard series~ ~ ~"This is a hard journey well shared and a book that risks real sadness to tell its human truth."~Kris Saknussemm, cult novelist and multimedia artist~ ~ ~"This book is to Australia what Trainspotting is to Scotland."~R.B. Clague, author

Four Seconds: A Memoir


Laura Andrade - 2019
     “You’ll like it,” she argued. “I know I’ll like it,” I said. “That’s why I’m not going to try it.” “Try it just this once and I’ll never ask you to do it again.” That was a deal. I slipped back into the driver’s seat while Pat corn-rowed two neat lines of the silky white powder on the back of a plastic cassette tape cover. Fifteen hundred dollars every month, an abusive boyfriend, a molested child, a lost family, hotels for houses, a ruined leg, a gun to my head, a knife to my butt, a jail cell all my own. Black eyes, bruised days, broken hours. Looking back, it seems strange what I gave up to get my roommate off my back. It only took four seconds. *** In her debut memoir, Andrade tells of her years with cocaine and crystal methamphetamines—using, then selling—until all she had left of the life she wanted was a chalk outline and a pack of cigarettes. This is the story of her use and recovery, of the people who frustrated and inspired her, of her decision to leave the drug world. It is the story of her slow, often unsteady walk home.

Lily Tomlin: The Kindle Singles Interview (Kindle Single)


Tom Roston - 2015
    Of course, the 75-year-old actress and comedian has been turning out unforgettable roles for the better part of five decades, from Ernestine, the condescending telephone operator on “Laugh-In,” to Violet Newstead, the secretary in “9 to 5.” In this wide-ranging, intimate and often hilarious Kindle Singles Interview, Tomlin covers all aspects of her extraordinary life and career, turning a drab Manhattan hotel room into a one-woman show with tales of her childhood in Detroit, her early years in New York, and the origins of her classic characters.Tom Roston is a veteran journalist and author of two previous Kindle Singles Interviews, with Ted Allen and Ken Burns. Roston began his career at The Nation and Vanity Fair, before working at Premiere magazine as a senior editor. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and his book, I Lost It At The Video Store, a filmmakers' oral history, will be published by The Critical Press in September. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City.Cover design by Adil Dara.

Strictly Ann: The Autobiography


Ann Widdecombe - 2013
     A rare anti-hunting Tory, who campaigned for prison education and once donned a miner's overalls to go down a coal mine, Ann Widdecombe has never shied away from controversy. Her memoirs reveal a singular personality who lives life to the full. From feisty appearances on HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU to her unforgettable and star-turning performances on STRICTLY COME DANCING, Ann has earned her place in the public's affections and has been heralded as a 'national living treasure' by the GUARDIAN.