Substance Abuse and Recovery: Recommended Books

In her keenly observed graphic memoir, Impossible People, celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery. Far from the typical addiction narrative that follows an upward trajectory from rock bottom to rehab to recovery, Impossible People portrays the lesser told but more common story: That the road to recover is not always linear. With unflinching honesty, Wertz details the arduous, frustrating, and hilarious story of trying and failing and trying again.

A blend of theory and counseling techniques, this comprehensive text provides readers with an overview of several major counseling theories and their application to substance use disorders and addiction counseling, along with related techniques and interventions.

In this book, leading bioethicist Gregory Pence demystifies seven foundational theories of addiction and addiction treatment. From Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous to methadone clinics and brain chemistry studies, each method holds foundation beliefs about human nature, free will, and biology. Understanding the diversity of these theories allows us to build a framework for more effective treatment for all addiction types.

Former Buddhist monk John Bruna outlines the seven skills of living mindfully in recovery--values, attention, wisdom, equanimity, compassion, loving-kindness, and action--utilizing lessons, meditations, reflections, andother daily practices.

Grisel shows how different drugs act on the brain, the kind of experiential effects they generate, and the specific reasons why each is so hard to kick. Grisel's insights lead to a better understanding of the brain's critical contributions to addictive behavior.

The misuse and abuse of prescription drugs has reached epidemic proportions in recent years, yet many individuals still believe, incorrectly, that their use is without risk. This book explores those risks as well as controversies surrounding this public health issue.

Offers an examination of drug use, abuse, and treatment, offering clinical and scientific knowledge, case studies, and policy suggestions intended to help drug users, their families, and communities deal with the problem.

After three decades of living in the sandy beach suburbs of Huntington Beach, Jon Vreeland's heroin addiction has finally destroyed his once promising music career, and estranged himself from his wife and his two daughters. This is the story of how he began to get out.

A reference handbook provides an overview of the history and development of youth substance abuse along with a discussion of the medical, social, psychological, legal, and economic issues associated with youth substance abuse both in the United States and other parts of the world.

This book presents a radically different addiction treatment paradigm, based on science, evidence and best practices, and has a success rate approaching 100% when followed closely. This model should profoundly upend the current addiction treatment industry. Nearly every addict lives in a social system--a family, workplace or community--that enables and supports, often unconsciously, the addict's addiction. Instead of the current addict-focused approach, this model extends treatment to the entire support system, starting treatment with the concerned family members.

A revelatory, moving narrative that offers a harrowing critique of the war on drugs from voices seldom heard in the conversation: drug users who are working on the front lines to reduce overdose deaths.

Drug overdoses now kill more Americans annually than guns, cars or breast cancer, but we have tried to solve this national crisis with policies that only made matters worse. In the name of "sending the right message," we have maximized the spread of infectious disease, torn families apart, incarcerated millions of mostly Black and Brown people--and utterly failed to either prevent addiction or make effective treatment for it widely available. There is another way, one that is proven to work. However, it runs counter to much of the received wisdom of our criminal and medical industrial complexes. It is called harm reduction.

Prescription drug abuse takes many forms, from taking a friend's painkillers for your backache to misusing pills to lose weight or get high. The three classes of medications most commonly misused are opioids (usually prescribed to treat pain); central nervous system depressants (used to treat anxiety and sleeplessness); and stimulants (most often prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy).

A congresswoman and her son reveal how he survived a ten-year battle with opioid abuse--and what their family's journey to recovery can teach us about finding hope amid the unspeakable.

There is growing alarm over how drugs empower terrorists, insurgents, militias, and gangs. But by looking back not just years and decades but centuries, Peter Andreas reveals that the drugs-conflict nexus is actually an old story, and that powerful states have been its biggest beneficiaries.

Particular attention is given to the nature of addiction, including environmental, genetic, and developmental factors; with authors examining the short- and long-term effects of a variety of addictions such as drug, alcohol, gambling, food, sex, shopping, work, and video gaming to name a few.

With commentary from public heath experts and the inclusion of more than 30 primary sources, Drug Abuse and Drug Epidemics also explores the origins, costs, and sharply polarized opinions regarding the decades old war on drugs.