A New York lawyer, Lisa F. Smith, spirals downward while her friends reach new heights in their careers, life, and relationships. It’s raw; it’s honest, and it’s a beautiful story of redemption and recovery. In 1992, Mishka Shubaly survived a mass shooting at his school, his parents divorced, his father abandoned him, and he swore he would right all the wrongs for his mother. Instead, he began a love affair with the bottle and barely crawled out, but he did, and we cheer him on at each twist and turn in his journey.
Horrified and enthralled, we see the world through Clegg’s increasingly despairing gaze—and a part of us longs as much as he does for another fix to provide some relief from the horror. Although both are worth reading, it’s the first I find myself returning to, marvelling at its ability to conjure the insanity of addiction from inside its diabolical reality. Only a handful of the addiction memoirs of recent decades are also, in my view, singular works of art.
Best Biographies » The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
I love her perspective on drinking as an act of counter-feminism—that in reality it actually dismantles our power, our pride, and our dignity as women, though we intended the opposite. Having said that, I did—while reading Ditlevsen’s Dependency—occasionally need to put the book down and take a few deep breaths. Even the second time around I found it so viscerally powerful that at times I was overwhelmed. It was every bit as gruelling and heartbreaking as the truth required it to be. And I can’t think of a better compliment to a writer of addiction memoir – or, indeed, any writer – than that.
It’s a witty, straightforward tale of the shenanigans, shame, and confusion that occurs in the morning-afters. Sarah also explores how alcohol affected her relationships with her friends, family, and even her cat. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional. Jerry Stahl was a writer with significant and successful screenwriting credits — Dr. Caligari, Twin Peaks, Moonlighting, and more.
Louise Foxcroft on The History of Medicine and Addiction
Burke’s courage and self-empathy culminated in the powerful #MeToo movement. Unbound is not only about her resiliency and quest for healing but also a beacon of empathy, power, and best alcoholic memoirs leadership, inviting all to embark on their own paths of healing. This 2022 memoir from a Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker staff writer captures the nuance of loss and discovery.
