The most recommended books about addiction

Benson and Simpson use the opportunity perspective – assuming that crimes often depend on offenders recognizing an opportunity to commit an offense – to uncover the processes and situational conditions that induce white-collar crimes. 

They offer solutions to this persistent and widespread social problem, recognizing the difficulties of control.

The treatment is thoroughly researched and empirically supported. 

Using short stories, essays, and memoir selections from such authors as Poe, Tolstoy, Dorthey Parker, and Cheever, this book is an anthology of literature on addiction. Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat,” captures the madness that comes of alcoholism. Tolstoy’s essay offers sage advice about the nature of addiction. A lesser-known but standout story by Donna Steiner, “Sleeping with Alcohol,” teaches us what it’s like to be in love with an alcoholic and watching that person self-destruct. I’m a professor of English, and I used this book in a class I taught called “The Literature of Addiction,” alongside Dirk Hanson’s The Chemical Carousel as a primer for better understanding addiction before launching into stories, essays, and memoirs about it. The short stories in Under the Influence: The Literature of Addiction are entertaining as well as enlightening, and its other selections are just as informative as the books I previously mentioned.

The beautiful prose kept me wanting to find out how Jesse went from an abandoned child to a homeless addict and then persevered to become an academic as an adult.

It was a difficult read at times, and I needed to process what I was reading. At one point, I thought I would cry from the heartbreak of what Jesse, as both a young child and an adult, endured. Jesse shines a light on Canada’s systemic racism and the treatment of the homeless population.

I was left wondering how he survived all his tribulations and happy that he did. We need to hear more stories like this on our way to reconciliation.

This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys memoirs!

This is another book I read before I ever dreamed it might apply to me.

Caroline describes her experience with anorexia, alcoholism, and intimacy issues while working as a journalist in a way that I found incredibly compelling. And when I realized I had the same problems, I found her writing incredibly comforting as well.

I’m so sad that she ended up passing away from lung cancer way too young, but I’m so happy she left us this memoir.

The brilliance of Hustle is the way it juxtaposes the everyday addict's life. Sure, there's the big crime and action, bad guys, car chases. Again, that part fiction. But Hustle lives and breathes in between. In the minutia. Of the doldrums of, as Lou Reed once so eloquently sang, waiting for the man. It's the quiet moments and small conversations between Big Rich and Donny, where we see their humanity. As warped and twisted as the world may be around them, they never lose that appeal: being victims of the human condition. And like I said, living this life with Tom (the drug part), I can honestly say it was those little conversations that give you something to laugh about and a little hope to hold onto. 

While anxiety and addiction get a lot of airtime in fiction, depression is less common. That’s why I devoured Jessie Stephen’s book. It brings life to what it’s like to live with depression through a page-turning story where you’re rooting for the main characters.

I recommend this book to anyone who has depression, but perhaps more importantly, to those who know and love someone living with a mood disorder. It has a way of demonstrating the nuances and intrusive thoughts that people with depression experience but often have difficulty verbalizing.

Drawing upon stories from all the great spiritual traditions, Kurtz and Ketcham keep shocking us out of our assumptions about the spiritual life, and inviting us to abandon the pursuit of perfection that many of us identify with it. They pull the rug out from under us, telling us what we don’t expect to hear. There’s something comical about embracing imperfection. But if they’re right, it’s the only real alternative to living tragically. I suggest watching Chaplin’s City Lights and Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box, as you make your way through the chapters of this book.

This novel is the best account of the gambling psychology I know. It is a first-person narrative, ruthless in its depiction of the lies that addicts know they’re telling themselves. The story of a resentful compulsive gambler, the poor but superior tutor to a Russian family at “Roulettenburg,” it was itself the subject of a bet. Dostoevsky signed away his next decade’s worth of publishing profits unless he could deliver a new novel within a year. With six weeks to go he hadn’t written a word. He delivered the completed novel several hours before the deadline was going to pass. 

The most valuable lesson I received is that sometimes you have to let loved ones make bad choices. There’s nothing you can do beyond prayer and hope.

This book and the movie portray the good in people who do bad or stupid things. You end up loving the characters no matter how bad their choices. Sadly, many can relate to the story through family, friends, or even themself. The characters are believable and I would wager the author based the story on real life. It’s also an excellent book for anyone needing an introduction to recovery programs like Alanon, ACOA, or Alcoholics Anonymous. The story’s message is important: You have to be willing to change and trust in a power higher than yourself.

This book explains why watching porn is a problem and how ingrained it has become in our society. You will understand why watching porn can be harmful at a deep level after reading this book.

The book also explains why objectification is a problem and how watching porn contributes to it. It is an easy read and a good place to start for an introduction to the topic.