Diligently treating the drug addicts of Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside with sympathy in his heart and legislative reform in mind can't be easy. But Maté never judges. His book is a powerful call-to-arms, both for the decriminalization of drugs and for a more sympathetic and informed view of addiction. As Maté observes, "Those whom we dismiss as 'junkies' are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves." In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts begins by introducing us to many of Dr. Maté's most dire patients who steal, cheat, sell sex, and otherwise harm themselves for their next hit. Maté looks to the root causes of addiction, applying a clinical and psychological view to the physical manifestation and offering some enlightening answers for why people inflict such catastrophe on themselves.Finally, he takes aim at the hugely ineffectual, largely U.S.-led War on Drugs (and its worldwide followers), challenging the wisdom of fighting drugs instead of aiding the addicts, and showing how controversial measures such as safe injection sites are measurably more successful at reducing drug-related crime and the spread of disease than anything most major governments have going. It's not easy reading, but we ignore his arguments at our peril. When it comes to combating the drug trade and the ravages of addiction, society can use all the help it can get. --Kim Hughes

    This book will equally deepen the awareness of clinicians and enlighten the lay reader. It is a gift to both.' Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPPIn this highly articulate, down-to-earth, generous book, Dr David Galler tells stories of life and death from his position as Intensive Care specialist at Middlemore Hospital. Written lyrically and warmly, these stories are based on real life events describing the everyday dilemmas and challenges that doctors and patients commonly face.It aims to explain and demystify much of the work doctors do, cast light on the workings of the medical establishment and how medicine operates, in the hope that it will encourage patients to seek to be better informed and play a greater role in the decisions that will affect them and their loved ones.It speaks to the resilience of individuals and families and their extraordinary generosity and dignity under the most extreme pressure. This book is about realistic optimism and is a celebration of life.It is also a very personal story about David Galler's life, his family and about his own slow coming of age as a doctor, from the sadness and helplessness he felt about his father's death to at last feeling that he was of some use to his most important patient, his mother.

    Veerappan responded in a soft voice: 'It has been many years since I killed elephants. But no one believes me if I say so.'

    She plays the good girl well doing whatever it takes to pacify those around her, including her scumbag boyfriend who doesn't necessarily deserve her loyalty. When tragedy strikes bringing her boyfriend's extended family into town Tori is offered a way to escape in a dangerous package. Multiple tattoos and piercings should warn Tori to stay away but something about Sterling Bentley draws her in: into his life, into his bed, into his soul, his heart and his pain. What do you do when you find the love of your life and they are the opposite of what you thought you wanted? Do you run? Or do you stay? Sometimes we don't get to choose. Sometimes life brings us the unexpected, challenges us, and pushes us out of our comfort zone for a reason. Sterling Bentley just might be Tori's reason. FALLING FOR A BENTLEY is a story about addiction, forgiveness, heartbreak and hope. Recommended for ages 18 and up due to sexual situations, drug use and language.

    In the style of his first book, Andy recalls each event from the detailed documentation recorded at the time, each account written in a way that puts the reader right there next to him so that you live the events in real-time, hear the dialogue between paramedics, patient, their loved ones and other healthcare professionals as it would have been, and share in Andy’s thought processes during each of the ten very different situations he encounters.The term ‘The Dark Side’ describes the frontline emergency aspect of the Ambulance Service, since paramedics frequently experience sombre situations. In ‘The Dark Side, Part 2’ you will share in some truly traumatic, tragic and tearful events involving a seemingly vibrant, healthy young patient, a prison inmate, the victims of an horrific car crash, heart attacks, a frightening epileptic fit, the alarming effects of an allergic reaction, and what can happen when under-strain doctors prescribe the wrong medication. But there’s still room for lighthearted moments and a taste of the sometimes dark humour that allows paramedics to continually deal with events most of us would find too horrific. The detail in the descriptions of the care given to each patient on-scene by Andy and his colleagues will have you marvelling at the ability of these healthcare professionals to work at such speed of thought, buying enough time to deliver a patient into the specialist hands of hospital care and often full recovery. Of course there are inevitably also those times when tears of hope turn to tears of despair for loved ones. You cannot feel that pain until it happens to you, but this book will bring you mighty close to it at times.

    Exposes the dark and often seedy world shrouded behind the glamorous facade of professional football. 'I was a mess. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't structure my day properly. I couldn't face having a shower or getting dressed. Those all seemed like major events I didn't want to confront.' Once the most charismatic and expensive player in the new Premiership flooded with cash, Stan Collymore had, by the age of 28, booked himself into The Priory to treat his depression, close to self-destruction and unable to get his head round playing at all. Along the way, he had been the goalscorer nobody wanted to congratulate, the centre-forward no one knew how to manage, a deeply reluctant star in a tabloid culture that saw him make the front pages as often as the back, and that waited for him to crack up or lash out. When he eventually did, it was, infamously, inevitably, at his then celebrity girlfriend, Ulrika Jonsson.But then retired from football in 2001 and finding himself in the commentary box, he proved he did care about the game, rather too much perhaps, sounding like a fan as much as an ex-player -- and at a stroke he had more in common with the rest of the nation. He knew it was all so much more than a game, and what happened on the field was only a reflection of what was going on inside players' heads. The contradictions remain. A man, who had a steady stream of celebrity women falling at his feet, shamed by his voyeurism in a Cannock car park; a star with everything who was once discovered by his wife tightening a belt around his neck; a loving dad of two whose own father walked out of the marital home and who Collymore continues to blot from his memory to this day; a footballer who abstains from drink and drugs, yet who needs therapy at Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous; the loner slated for his aloofness who found critical acclaim as a football pundit on national prime-time radio. This is Stan Collymore's own life story, the real person on his flawed character and personal demons, telling it like you have never seen before -- raw and uncut.

    Just as Nicks (and Lindsay Buckingham) gave Fleetwood Mac the shot of adrenaline they needed to become real rock stars--according to Christine McVie--Gold Dust Woman is vibrant with stories and with a life lived large and hard: ●How Nicks and Buckingham were asked to join Fleetwood Mac and how they turned the band into stars ●The affairs that informed Nicks' greatest songs ●Her relationships with the Eagles' Don Henley and Joe Walsh, and with Fleetwood himself ●Why Nicks married her best friend's widower ●Her dependency on cocaine, drinking and pot, but how it was a decade-long addiction to Klonopin that almost killed her ●Nicks' successful solo career that has her still performing in venues like Madison Square Garden ●The cult of Nicks and its extension to chart-toppers like Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks

    He also explains what it's like presenting Radio 2's lunchtime show and talking to 6 million listeners - people who, as he puts it have better stories than we do. Written in Jeremy's unmistakably lively and self-deprecating voice, It's All News to Me paints a vivid picture of what it's like to be trapped inside the BBC - arguably the most interesting organisation in the country - for 25 years

    If it is a story of grief, it is also a story of hope and of the unexpected places where healing can be found. Simon's journey takes him from Edinburgh in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, to Downing Street in London, to Thailand and the island where his brother died, to the scene of an ancient tsunami on the north-west coast of the United States, and to the town where he and his brother's favourite childhood film was made. Along the way there is heartbreak, dengue fever, Greek mythology, and hard physical labour in the tropical heat, but there is also memory, redemption and humour as well.

    Duignan describes how, two years ago, he staged a dramatic escape from the elite paramilitary group at the core of the Church, the Sea Organization, and how he narrowly evaded pursuit by the Office of Special Affairs. He looks back on the 22 years he served in the Church's secret army and describes the hours of sleep deprivation, brain-washing and intense religious counseling he endured, as he was molded into a soldier of Scientology. He talks about the money-making-machine at the heart of the Church, the Scientology goal to Clear the Planet and Get Ethics In, and the punishments meted out to anyone who transgresses. We follow his journey through the Church and the painful investigation that leads to his eventual realization that there is something very wrong at Scientology's core.--From publisher description.

    Amber is introduced to drugs and becomes addicted without her mother's knowledge. She meets a dealer who feeds her habit. Whilst living together, they are raided by the police. Bailed to her mother's address with a £200-a-day addiction, Amber doesn't think her family will accept her back when they discover the truth. When she's charged by the police with dealing class A drugs and accepting stolen goods, she fears she'll go to prison. Trying to feed her habit alone, Amber meets a fellow addict who offers to introduce her to prostitution. The prospect terrifies her, but will her mother help her?An unflinching story that looks at drug addiction from two sides. The book's concluding section offers two sets of personal guidelines; one for addicts, the other for parents or partners of addicts, while the in-depth, harrowing real life story vividly illustrates the difficulties of overcoming addiction. In a society where 50% of teenagers experiment with drugs, Amber is every mother's child. She could be yours.

    Throughout the course of a career that has spanned more than 20 years, she has worked with some of the world’s biggest stars and business people, including Simon Cowell, Samuel L. Jackson, Mariah Carey and Meghan Markle.But there’s more to her story than that.In Purpose, Jessica shares the lessons she learned as she went from being an individual who felt purposeless and unhappy, to someone who recognizes her complete power to design and create a successful, meaningful and limitless life built from an authentic foundation. Using the tools Jessica shares, you too will feel empowered to get unstuck, begin making real change in your own life and the lives of others, and live according to your own true PURPOSE.

    We think that if we can achieve perfection, we will achieve happiness. We believe that if we can avoid pain, we can also avoid abandonment and loneliness and unworthiness. Perfection is the thief of joy. It’s a lie that keeps us in a stranglehold of chaos and people-pleasing and addiction and lack. Perfection says we are never good enough. It holds us back from being our truest, most authentic selves. Author Vitale Buford spent nearly three decades of her life in the web of perfection. The roots of her perfection were born in her childhood - she had a dysfunctional home-life fraught with alcoholism, workaholism and shame. This combination created an environment of neglect, where the only way Vitale got attention was to be perfect. She was praised for being an “easy child,” “pretty,” and “self-motivated,” so that’s what she tried to be. Her need for perfection and outside success was coupled with her body image obsession. It was also a distraction from the pain of abandonment and loneliness she experienced in her childhood. It was the perfect storm – she tied her self-worth to her external success and her appearance, and hence, her addiction to perfection was born. The need for perfection followed her to college, and when she started gaining weight, she became obsessed with dieting to make her body smaller and more acceptable. She worked hard in college and got good grades, but her body shame was all consuming. Her junior year of college, she was introduced to Adderall as a “study drug.” She used it for a few months – and ended up losing 20 pounds; she also got her best grades ever with her most rigorous course load. She was sure she had discovered the “perfect drug.” She was able to obtain her own prescription the following year. It hooked her immediately. She was addicted not only to Adderall but also to the perfection and the weight loss and her newfound ability to accomplish projects and tasks with ease. This was the beginning of a 10-year love affair with Adderall. In Addicted to Perfect, Vitale shares the highs and lows of having been a slave to Adderall, the destructive relationships that ensued, and the way that she finally broke free. She details the many twists and turns involved in the years leading up to her getting sober and the eating disorder that followed her into sobriety. It took parenthood and radical honesty for her to begin the road to true healing. Perfectionism is no longer something that enslaves her, and Vitale’s story is one of hope that no matter where you are in your life, you can release the grip of perfection. You can heal your pain and your abandonment and your loneliness and your fear and your guilt and your shame. You can experience true freedom, and most importantly, replace perfection with self-love.

    The Australian Medical Association launched the Anna Wood Drug and Alcohol Education Project. This book, supported by Anna's family and friends, endorses the AMA initiative.

    Armed with a newfound swagger, the author transforms a much anticipated, romantic holiday with his wife into a decidedly unromantic, though highly romanticized roots tour with comic results. Crammed into their tiny rental car (a Fiat Crumb or some such model), the couple scour the countryside, from castles to trailer parks, looking for something more to commemorate Crawford history than a family crest refrigerator magnet - and ultimately discover something altogether richer: a thriving country with the most beautiful and haunting scenery imaginable, a romantic history full of blood, intrigue and heroism, and some of the friendliest and most fiercely loyal people in the world. Award-winning travel writer Scott Crawford resides in the British Virgin Islands. A professional educator, he has a keen interest in travel and history, which infuse his writings. Where's Me Plaid is his first book.