Good books about addiction and recovery?

Hi all--

 

Since I'm a writer myself and am writing a memoir about what I've been going through, I've been reading all the other addiction books I can find.  So much about alcoholism but very little about benzos or opioids after being prescribed by a doctor.  I'M DANCING AS FAST AS I CAN was kind of a classic, a story about a woman winding up in a mental institution after going cold turkey off her Valium.  A recent book called DEATH GRIP dealt with the hell of benzo use and withdrawal. 

 

I recently read RECOVERY AND RENEWAL by Baylissa Frederick which everybody on this board should know about it.  It's a great comfort to know your fears (that you won't ever get well and that you must surely have some other weird disease) are par for the course.

 

I guess I'm going to write the sort of book I wanted to read in the middle of this but couldn't find!  In the meantime, anybody have any suggestions?

 

Thanks.

 

FinallyJoining63

Well, gee, if 15 people have read my posted question and nobody's got a suggestion, does that mean there aren't any good books out there on the subject of benzo withdrawal?

Well, gee, if 15 people have read my posted question and nobody's got a suggestion, does that mean there aren't any good books out there on the subject of benzo withdrawal?

 

Hi, here we go.

The Benzo Book by Jack Hobson-dupot.

http://www.thebenzobook.com/benzo/pdfs/the-benzo-book10.pdf

 

Worse than Heroin , by Robert Mercer.

 

Recovery stories, by Cepuk.org (videos)

http://cepuk.org/recovery-stories/

 

Books about psych.drugs.

 

Cracked , by James Davies.

Unhinged, by Daniel J. Carlat

Medication Madness, by Peter Breggin.

Toxic Psychiatry, by Peter Breggin.

Deadly Medicine and Organized Crime , by Peter Grotzsche.

 

There are more like by Robert Whitaker.

I guess this will do for a start, right ?

 

Very interesting Mooreweg, I did not know there were so many out there. When I came off Ativan c/t years ago I found a book on tranquilisers but it was not very helpful in regard to withdrawal.

 

I will have a look for some of the ones you mention.

 

Finallyjoining, good luck with your book. I am a poet but I cannot write at the moment - hopefully when I feel a bit better

Hi There...here is one that was suggested to me!!!      Recovery and Renewal    Bliss Johns

Hey, Morreweg, thank you so much.  I will start looking into these.  E-books now allow for an addictive experience in going through books and I am ready for a download this morning!  Yeah, Mary, Recovery and Renewal is one I mentioned in my opening post and it's especially good for reading as therapy when you're feeling perfectly miserable.

 

Hoping to find more memoirs rather than non-fiction textbook types.  We humans crave STORIES.  That's why I'm loving Benzobuddies so much.  I like hearing everybody's story!

Oh yes I see. Sorry didn t recognise the author.  Yes great book.  If you do a search in Moyà  s posts. She actually downloaded one as well...!!

Hey, Morreweg, thank you so much.  I will start looking into these.  E-books now allow for an addictive experience in going through books and I am ready for a download this morning!  Yeah, Mary, Recovery and Renewal is one I mentioned in my opening post and it's especially good for reading as therapy when you're feeling perfectly miserable.

 

Hoping to find more memoirs rather than non-fiction textbook types.  We humans crave STORIES.  That's why I'm loving Benzobuddies so much.  I like hearing everybody's story!

 

F, you are welcome, reading some Benzo-books and getting support on this Forum

will make it easier to push through this journey.

I found this book super informative and it helped me feel less crazy: Death Grip: A Climber's Escape from Benzo Madness by Matt Samet.

I am planning on writing a book as well when my cognitive function allows and I have read Death Grip, The Benzo Book, The Accidental Addict, and most recently Klonopin Withdrawal & Howling Dogs: Maybe it was God. Just ordered Recovery and Renewal which should be here tomorrow.

 

I have enjoyed and gained something from all of the books on the subject I have read but one of the reasons why I want to write a book of my own is because nothing I have read to date is something I would be able to hand off to someone to help them understand what I went through.

Klonopin Withdrawal and Howling Dogs: Maybe it was God

Author: Audrey Wagner

 

Looks like there are quite a few of us writing books....that'll give the people after us plenty of distraction 

Klonopin Withdrawal and Howling Dogs: Maybe it was God

Author: Audrey Wagner

 

Looks like there are quite a few of us writing books....that'll give the people after us plenty of distraction 

 

Yep, and the more voices out there saying the same thing the more likely this illness will be taken seriously in the future. I know anyone can write anything they want but there is something about going through the effort to write a book that lends credibility to the issue. The websites and the youtube vids help out as well but I think people take the information more seriously when it is presented in a book form.

FloridaGuy - I couldn't agree more. Are you writing a memoir or educational text? 

I am a journalist and have read many of the books mentioned here. But once I am done I just want to put this into a distant memory and go back to reporting. That's my life, as it were.

benzogirl--I hear you and that's why I'm glad I've already written my book.  When I finished it up I didn't know I still had at least another year to go before I was completely healed. Now I'm so glad I waited to publish it because I've gained greater insights since then.  I need to be 100% confident of being 100% healed before I put it out there and hopefully I'm getting close.  Now I'm realizing how much I WOULDN'T have wanted to try to go back and dredge up everything I was going through.  It's all right there, written in a white hot heat of passion and anger at what I'd been put through.  Since I can only  work on it when I'm in windows and feel I'll be looking back on it, it kind of amazes me to think I had enough good times a year ago to write it.  Seems like I poured it out inside of three months.  I'm calling it ACCIDENTAL ADDICT: a Memoir of Pain, Addiction, and Healing....also Marriage, Real Estate, and Cowboy Dancing.  Would you read a book with that title? 

FloridaGuy - I couldn't agree more. Are you writing a memoir or educational text?

 

Well, I won't be writing anything until (unless??) I regain enough of my creativity and cognitive function to be able to tackle such a task. I actually started jotting down bullet points of things I wanted to touch on when I had periods of time where my cognitive function returned but I lack the ability to put everything together into a book form.

 

As far as what I want to write I want to tell my story but I also want to address the problem as a whole and try to find a way to explain it so people who have never experienced it can understand. Might be a stretch to think that there is a way to do that but this is one of the things about this experience that really bothered me and I would love to be able to write something that helps other people "get it".

Florida Guy-- I have in mind exactly what you're talking about.  I think people can best understand something if they get on board with a character they can sympathize with and just walk in their shoes for awhile.  I think Death Grip is fascinating for those of us going through this, but he had such a long, tangled history of drug use AND abuse, that I'm afraid outsiders might tend to be dismissive of him and his sufferings.  We need the medical profession to understand the harm being done to people whose only mistake was in trusting their doctors.

Florida Guy-- I have in mind exactly what you're talking about.  I think people can best understand something if they get on board with a character they can sympathize with and just walk in their shoes for awhile.  I think Death Grip is fascinating for those of us going through this, but he had such a long, tangled history of drug use AND abuse, that I'm afraid outsiders might tend to be dismissive of him and his sufferings.  We need the medical profession to understand the harm being done to people whose only mistake was in trusting their doctors.

 

I totally agree. People look for ways to dismiss the symptoms of benzo wd so if they hear that you were deviating ever so slightly from your doctors orders or doing anything that could remotely be considered as detrimental it gives them an excuse to dismiss your condition. I enjoyed Matt's book but it isn't something that is ever going to allow a lot of others to understand what it is like for those very reasons.

 

The reason we ended up on the drug is another point of scrutiny for anyone who chooses to dismiss our condition. You were put on the drug for anxiety? Well, no wonder your anxiety is through the roof when you stop taking it! You need to take more! You have a mental condition that need to be treated!

 

Of course we all know that there are plenty of folks here who started taking benzos for non psychological issues who end up with the exact same physical and mental symptoms as those of us who started taking it for anxiety, but for someone who wants to find reasons to doubt this condition it is just another loophole that allows them to close off their brain to the idea that a prescription drug can make you sicker than you ever thought possible.

 

I have to be careful how I present the info because I not only stated taking the benzo for social anxiety (which was the ONLY anxiety I had an issue with) but I also drank a lot more alcohol while I was on the drug. The fact that it is almost guaranteed that the benzo was causing me to want to drink more is inconsequential to most people because it was a "choice" I was making that wasn't recommended by my doctor. I have no idea whether or not it had any impact on my recovery but it seems to be a pretty common thing to end up drinking excessively while on these drugs so I think it is important to mention it despite the fact that it might give outsiders the wrong impression.

 

 

FG--You sound like an intelligent guy with a good handle on this.

 

Like everybody on this forum, I really hate that I drew this card.  But, as a writer, it kind of seems like I have ended up with a strong story, no matter how dearly I had to pay for my material.  And actually---like a lot of other BBs, I think I make a pretty good poster girl for innocent victim because of my disgustingly squeaky clean record in terms of substance abuse.  I have never even had a hangover!  I have come through this with nothing but increased compassion for anybody trying to get unhooked from anything, but, as you say, some people's stories wouldn't go over as well with people looking to write us off as nutcases.  Of course there are lots of people on the board in the same situation as me, but they aren't necessarily writers.  When I look for something to write, I'm always looking for a story that's mine to tell, one that I'm in a position, for whatever reason, to tell better than anyone else.  The fact that I ended up getting to explore  both opioid AND benzo withdrawal meant that I started plugging into all the news stories about the issue.

 

I haven't re-read my manuscript since I originally wrote it last spring.  I'm a little bit afraid of doing so now as I always am.  I'm always afraid I'll hate what I wrote!  Often I'm pleasantly surprised, but this seems like a different case.  I've survived another full year of withdrawal since writing it, and I don't know how much that will have altered my perspective.

 

There do seem to be a lot of self published addiction memoirs and I've read quite a few.  Mostly they're not very well written, even if the authors have compelling stories to share.

 

If you want to tell your story, I wouldn't let the fact that you maybe drank more during withdrawal than you should have be a reason to not give it a shot.  You're probably familiar with Cheryl Strayed's memoir, "Wild."  Hey, she left a perfectly decent husband, shot heroin, and was apparently rather promiscuous, and still she managed to pull off a memoir that resonates with tons of people.  Nobody likes too much of a Goody Two Shoes, either!  Reading her story and watching the film, I kind of wondered if I'd blown my life story by steering clear of the heroin and staying with my husband!

Just appeal to the human nature in all of us, if you're writing a book.  Emphasize (not preachingly) the common conditions we all share as humans.  Conditions like our addictions... alcohol or exercising or eating sweets or spending half a life on the internet or iPhone.  It's all the same.  Same root cause.  People may not like that they, too, are fallible in living their lives, but whatever.  You'll speak to the ones who do realize that they are fallible, but are open minded enough to explore it further.

 

Exactly, Serenity.  Well put.

FG--You sound like an intelligent guy with a good handle on this.

 

Like everybody on this forum, I really hate that I drew this card.  But, as a writer, it kind of seems like I have ended up with a strong story, no matter how dearly I had to pay for my material.

 

Thanks, and yes, I believe that this experience could probably allow even a mediocre writer to write a decent book. I am not a professional writer (although I guess I have done it "professionally" a few times considering I used to write my own tv commercials and instructional videos) but I have found that really good writing comes from passion and if I can get myself to a better place health wise I think I might have what it takes to harness and the voice this experience has given me.

 

If you want to tell your story, I wouldn't let the fact that you maybe drank more during withdrawal than you should have be a reason to not give it a shot. 

 

I don't think it is a reason not to give it a shot. I think it needs to be noted but like I mentioned earlier, right or wrong, it's just another piece of ammunition for someone who wants to shoot holes in your story so it has to be presented properly.