Here are 100 books that The River Is Waiting fans have personally recommended if you like
The River Is Waiting.
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My name is Craig Melvin and I’m an anchor on NBC’s Today show. I’m also a father to my two young kids, Delano and Sybil. Being a dad is so important to me because when you’re a parent, you’re charged with shaping and molding a solid human being whose empathetic, compassionate, and responsible. I don’t take the responsibility lightly. Of the many jobs I have, it’s the most important.
This book follows a dad’s written record of what happened immediately after each of his three children was born. His retelling of the tantrums and the way that your world becomes turned upside down with young kiddos is captured in a way that’s extremely funny, but also relatable. This book is honest and doesn’t sugarcoat what being a dad is really like.
When Michael Lewis became a father, he decided to keep a written record of what actually happened immediately after the birth of each of his three children. This book is that record. But it is also something else: maybe the funniest, most unsparing account of ordinary daily household life ever recorded, from the point of view of the man inside. The remarkable thing about this story isn't that Lewis is so unusual. It's that he is so typical. The only wonder is that his wife has allowed him to publish it.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I'm a memoir writer whose latest book, Drunk-ish, chronicles my experience getting sober. Before quitting drinking and after, I devoured all the "quit lit" books I could get my hands on despite not being entirely convinced I had an issue. I read to bond and identify with the authors, and the books I'm recommending are a few of my very favorites on the topic of addiction. On my podcast, "For Crying Out Loud," I often share about quitting drinking and addiction in general, and when I do, I find those are some of the most popular episodes. If you're sober, thinking about quitting, or even just like reading books about messed-up boozers, these books are for you.
This book is about a mother’s struggles with Ambien addiction. This is another hugely relatable book that shows that regardless of how you present on the outside (Laura’s kids were in fancy private school, she lived in a massive house, and she was married to a big-time studio executive), your insides can be falling apart.
This book is beautifully written and painfully honest, which is a combination I can get behind.
“An irresistibly delicious story.” —Holly Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author
A propulsive and vivid memoir—in the vein of Drinking: A Love Story and Somebody’s Daughter—about the journey to sobriety and self-love amidst addiction, privilege, racism, and self-sabotage from the host of the popular podcast The Only One in the Room.
After years of hiding her addiction from everyone—from stockpiling pills in her Louboutins to elaborately scheduling withdrawals between PTA meetings, baby showers, and tennis matches—Laura Cathcart Robbins settles into a complicated purgatory.
She learns the hard way that privilege doesn’t protect you from pain. Facing divorce, the possibility of…
I'm a mystery writer and teacher now. Back then, I spent 10 years homeless and addicted on the streets of San Francisco. I could always return to Mom in CT and get put in a cushy rehab. Until I couldn't. And then she was dying, and my younger brother was addicted and soon he'd be dead too. It got scary at the end because I wasn't just some white suburban kid playing a scumbag junkie. I was a scumbag junkie. But why do I have a passion for the topic? I guess it's because it isn't all bad. I know that sounds weird, but being homeless and addicted has moments of beauty and joy too.
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. ButHustle 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.
Two young hustlers, caught in an endless cycle of addiction and prostitution, decide to blackmail an elderly client of theirs. Donny and Big Rich want to film Gabriel Thaxton with their cell phones during a sexual act and put the video up on YouTube. Little do they know, the man they’ve chosen, a high-profile San Francisco defense attorney, is already being blackmailed by someone more sinister: an ex-client of the lawyer’s. A murderous speed freak named Dustin has already permeated the attorney’s life and Dustin has plans for the old man. The lawyer calls upon an old biker for help…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
I come from a family of “functional” alcoholics, where feelings were never discussed and drinking was the way to solve (or more likely avoid or cause) problems. After 25 years of abusing alcohol (and drugs), I finally got sober. And for the first time ever, I started writing, because all those feelings I pushed down wanted a voice. All that childhood trauma needed more than AA and talk therapy to heal. So I gifted those feelings with written words, as did the writers I mention in my list. Recovery is something to pass on and telling our stories is another healing way to do it.
I worked with Erin on a deeply personal essay when she was an editor at Ravishly and was so excited when her memoir was published. Though we used different drugs and came from different backgrounds, our stories were similar, as are most addicts. We use to get rid of the pain, the shame, the anxiety/depression, whatever ails us. We find reprieve through our addictions, but find a loving life in recovery.
“This is a story she needed to tell; and the rest of the country needs to listen.” — New York Times Book Review
“This vital memoir will change how we look at the opioid crisis and how the media talks about it. A deeply moving and emotional read, STRUNG OUT challenges our preconceived ideas of what addiction looks like.” —Stephanie Land, New York Times bestselling author of Maid
In this deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her fifteen-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in…
For 43 years, I have been a practitioner and educator, focusing on trauma recovery. Far too often, I’ve seen the treatment culture itself limit opportunities for clients to be in charge of their own healing. That ignited in me a commitment to empowering clients to have ownership of their healing journey. I am constantly looking for resources to help clients develop the skills they need to be an effective participant in and guide for their own healing. These books do that amazingly well, and I’ve seen the positive difference each of them can make in clients’ skillfulness and capacity for self-healing.
This is my go-to book now for clients who are looking for more trauma-informed and inclusive versions of Twelve Step programs. I have never read another book on the Twelve Steps that so thoroughly and gracefully weaves so many different knowledge areas and traditions together in such a seamless whole and that so thoroughly models inclusion and cross-cultural curiosity.
And, oh my, the number of fabulous practices that are given as examples is like a treasure-trove of gems for both practitioners and clients alike. I love the kindness and generosity that is present in this book’s expansive invitation to embodied healing in the recovery journey.
A trauma-sensitive companion to the Twelve Steps: body-based exercises for deepening your recovery, expanding your spiritual practice, preventing relapse, and understanding the root of your addiction.
For readers of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and Trauma and the 12 Steps
Considering addiction through a trauma-informed lens, The Mind-Body Guide to the Twelve Steps offers an accessible, lyrical, and practical guide to Twelve Step recovery that emphasizes self-compassion, relationship, embodied awareness, and ecological connection.
Whether you're suffering from an active addiction, seeking freedom from self-limiting behaviors, or hoping to establish or grow your spiritual practice, this innovative guide offers a…
I started reading and listening to memoirs in preparation for writing my own, and they inspired me to be honest and vulnerable about my story in ways that helped me overcome sexual shame. I lived a fascinating lifestyle as a sugar daddy for a few years, but talking about it was scary as hell. Reading other men who admitted their fears and failings gave me the courage to be radically honest and lay it all out there. Writing the book was cathartic in ways decades of therapy failed!
I read Matthew Perry’s memoir only a month before his tragic death and was so moved by his honesty and vulnerability to every personal fear and failure.
I imagine reading it now would be a little more difficult, but it still stands as a powerful look inward at ambition, addiction, and fear of failure.
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
The BELOVED STAR OF FRIENDS takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this “CANDID, DARKLY FUNNY...POIGNANT” memoir (The New York Times)
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by Time, Associated Press, Goodreads, USA Today, and more!
“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty.”
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
When writing about sexuality it is important to me to write about true intimacy. Especially for those who have broken their wedding vows and for those who have been betrayed, who still long for real intimacy with spiritual and sexual maturity. My book, False Intimacy: Understanding the Struggle of Sexual Addiction (1992), was the first Christian book published on the subject of sexual addiction.I have for over thirty years counseled 1000s of sexually broken people from all across the U.S. who came to see me for a week of intensive counseling. I have taught on the subject of sexuality in all fifty states as well as over twenty foreign countries. No subject is more important to our spiritual maturity and sexual maturity.
After 30 years of counseling and 1000s of people in bondage to various sexual behaviors, I take a minority view, and do not believe that addiction, and sexual addiction in particular, is a disease; it is a bondage to sin. This book, I believe helps supports that view. I find in counseling, that when you deal with the sin problem as sin, not just a behavior problem, which is a symptom of sin, lives are radically changed. I could give hundreds of examples, but one that stands out was a sexual predator who seduced 100s of women, but after a radical heart change, his marriage survived and he went on to minister and help others, rather than to continue to use others.
I am an addictions physician with a passion for the field of food addiction. I have spoken, taught, and written about this subject for over 15 years. I am the author of Food Junkies: Recovery from Food Addiction; have a thriving free Facebook group: I'm Sweet Enough: Sugar-Free for Life (which you are invited to join),and a podcast called Food Junkies—to catch up on the latest in the field. I am also a food addict in recovery for over 15 years and have maintained a 100-pound weight loss since then.
An excellent, well-written memoir of what it is like to be a food addict. Sara Somers tells her story of discovery and how she finds recovery. You really feel the drama of what it is like to eat, to overeat to the point of shame and sickness, and then that is possible to recover from even the worst case. A book to identify and feel inspired to change.
For nearly fifty years, Sara Somers suffered from untreated food addiction. In this brutally honest and intimate memoir, Somers offers readers an inside view of a food addict's mind, showcasing her experiences of obsessive cravings, compulsivity, and powerlessness regarding food.
Saving Sara chronicles Somers's addiction from childhood to adulthood, beginning with abnormal eating as a nine-year-old. As her addiction progresses in young adulthood, she becomes isolated, masking her shame and self-hatred with drugs and alcohol. Time and again, she rationalizes why this time will be different, only to have her physical cravings lead to ever-worse binges, to see her promises…
I am a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who studies the social neuroscience of the self and human emotion, with a focus on how biases in self-representation shape emotional reactions that determine well-being. I am particularly interested in how cognitive training practices such as mindfulness meditation and yoga foster resilience against stress, reducing vulnerability to disorders such as depression. I’ve always wished we had better ways of communicating fascinating and important discoveries in neuroscience and mental health to a wider audience, so we combined our teaching experience in the fields of mindfulness, yoga, sports, and clinical psychology to write this book.
This book may seem out of place in a list of psychologically-minded self-help recommendations. And it is long, and hard to read. Don’t even get me started on the use of end-notes in a work of fiction. But it is quite simply one of the best books written in the past 100 years and it is all about people who have gotten stuck, trapped by habit or circumstance, and are yearning for a way to find meaning in life.
To me, this book is a self help book because it is written so powerfully (in a not-so-distance fictional future) that as the characters are inevitably transformed and sometimes freed from their assumed destinies, Wallace somehow illustrates how we too can be transformed in our daily routines and interactions by finding moments of clarity and meaning right where we are, rather than being saved by some outside force that promises liberation…
'A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything' New York Times
'Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight' James Wood, Guardian
'He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He's damn good' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
'One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory' Sunday Times
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the…
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
I am an author, science journalist, and storyteller. I worked for the PBS science series NOVA for many years, producing documentaries, podcasts, digital video series, and interactive games on everything from asteroids to human origins to art restoration. But I am particularly fascinated by strange brains, which is why I wrote my first book, The Memory Thief. I am currently at work on a second book about a different neurological disorder.
What if addiction isn’t a chronic relapsing disease, as described by the National Institute on Drug Abuse? What if a better way to think about it is as a type of learning disorder? Neuroscientist and author Marc Lewis, himself a recovering addict, makes his compelling argument through the stories of five people suffering from substance use disorders. This insightful book left me believing that the attempt to fit addiction into rigid categories does a disservice to the complexity of this condition.
Through the vivid, true stories of five people who journeyed into and out of addiction, a renowned neuroscientist explains why the "disease model" of addiction is wrong and illuminates the path to recovery.The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction a brain disease, based on evidence that brains change with drug use. But in The Biology of Desire , cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes a convincing case that addiction is not a disease, and shows why the disease model has become an obstacle to healing.Lewis reveals addiction as an unintended consequence of…
