There are so many books about drug and alcohol addiction that it's hard to choose one. A wise person once said that the only problem with self-help books is that they start with you. To say this, people who have alcohol or drug addictions, and the people who love them, are their own worst enemy. Their distorted views and beliefs are a big part of why they're in this situation. Drug users and their families may not be the best people to read a self-help book and then try to fix a problem on their own. If someone is addicted to drugs or alcohol, they and their family will read the information through a distorted lens. Books are great to read, but Alcoholics Anonymous isn't a self-help book at all. Instead, it's a textbook of ideas and suggestions. None of the suggestions say how to fix the problem on your own. You'll need help from someone else to do that.

Having books about drug and alcohol addiction can help some people get excited about getting help. Others may think the ideas and suggestions don't apply to them, and they'll throw away any ideas or solutions that come to mind. Think about a person who reads the books Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous while they are going through detox or while they are still using alcohol. It would be the same when the person is healthy, and has been clean and sober for ten years. A book may be helpful if you look at it for similarities rather than differences.

Isn't it better to read a book and then do nothing? If you read books about drug and alcohol addiction, they won't help you get better. You have to do something and get help from someone else. If you only read the book of Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous and did nothing else, chances are you wouldn't be any soberer than you are now. It's possible, but it's also very likely. The power of knowledge may not be enough to change the world, but taking action is what makes things happen.

Recommended Books on Drug and Alcohol Addiction

One of the most well-known books and one that almost every drug or alcohol treatment center bases its curriculum on is the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the book that most people know. Whether you like Alcoholics Anonymous or not, this book has a lot of great ideas. Because everyone who is addicted or has a family member who is addicted should read this book, we think everyone should. They will all find themselves in the text at some point in their lives.

Books for family members of drug addicts

Family members of people who are addicted are looking for answers and ideas. When a person learns more about addiction, they can see things in a new way. As we said earlier, reading the book and not doing anything else would be inaction. Family members of people who are addicted form an unhealthy and dysfunctional family system. Without this, the book may not be as helpful as one would hope.

Al-Anon, Families Anonymous, and ACOA meetings are always good places for families of addicts and alcoholics to go for help. They also need to get help on their own.

You should read these other books to learn more about addiction and how families and drug addicts deal with it.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Dr. Gabor Mate has a lot of knowledge about addiction and how it works, as well as ideas for how to stop it. No matter what, you should watch or read anything by Gabor Mate even if you don't think it's good. If you look up Gabor Mate on the internet, you will find a lot of videos and other things. In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts is one of his best books. Mate talks about how he thinks a lot of addiction in your adult years comes from childhood trauma. Mate thinks that some of our trauma can come from our implicit memories. Implicit memory is a memory that doesn't make you think about what happened. Early in a child's life, this can happen.

We think that many of the things Dr. Mate says are true. Most people who use drugs or alcohol have had some kind of trauma in their childhood. There are many different ways that people can be abused, from emotional, sexual, and physical abuse to growing up in a single-parent home, being adopted, or not feeling the love, attention, or affection that your parents show you. "That didn't happen in our house." The first thing is that you don't know for sure if something happened outside of the house and is a secret. Second, it doesn't matter if you know what happened or what you think happened. It's about how the other person feels when something happens, not how you feel. Everyone is unique and reacts to things in a different way. Some kids are born into bad situations, but they grow up to be very successful and not addicted. Dad was never there, or if he was, he didn't pay attention to the kids or say that he was proud of them. The trauma can happen in a wide range of situations, and it all comes down to how the person sees it and how they felt.

Pleasure Unwoven

Pleasure Unwoven was written by Dr. Kevin McCauley, and it can also be seen as a film. Pleasure Unwoven and material by Dr. Gabor Mate can give you two different views. In general, Dr. Mate doesn't seem to believe in the idea of disease, and Pleasure Unwoven wants to find out if that's the case. We won't give away the plot of the movie, and whether or not addiction is a disease, there are effective ways to treat it. People who use drugs or alcohol have two choices: They can keep destroying their lives and the lives of others, or they can get help and turn their lives around. It doesn't matter where addiction comes from.

Another thing to keep in mind is that families, friends, and some people in society think the substance user is hopeless if they believe that addiction is a disease. It doesn't matter if it is a disease or not. Enabling, codependency, and playing out bad family roles don't help it. There are a lot of diseases in the world, and each one has its own recommended treatment. The disease may not be the person's fault, and both the person with the disease and the people who love them have a responsibility to deal with it. The solutions come from people who know a lot about the disease in question. A big problem with addiction is that some of the suggested ways to deal with it aren't the same as almost every other disease. In other diseases, you wouldn't treat them the same way you would treat a substance use disorder. One big difference is that people who have loved ones who have other illnesses don't have to set rules, consequences, and accountability for them to get help. People who have illnesses that aren't addictions often fight for the cure and the answer, too. It's not like this: People who use drugs manipulate and break people up as they fight to stay sick.

Beautiful Boy.

Beautiful Boy is a good book and movie that does a great job of getting the reader or viewer into the life of a drug user and the people who care about them. One of the most powerful parts of the movie was when Nic's father, David, was putting together a bag to get his son back. The stepmother of his son, Nic, asked David where he was going. When he said that he would make Nic better, Karen, the stepmother, laughed. Karen said, "You can't fix this." True, even if that didn't happen in real life, it was a fact. The book and movie both sent a strong message that detaching from the addiction and not the person who has the addiction can be very helpful.

Families may or may not believe that the help they give will pay off in the long run. Addiction does not get better by giving the person who has it resources, housing, food, comfort, and other things that don't help. No one who has used drugs or alcohol goes to rehab or thinks about making a positive change unless they see and feel the need to do so. To this day, almost every addiction professional agrees with that. Some don't, but most of them agree with it. if addicted lives are made easier, the addicted person is less likely to change their life and do something different.

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