Best 10 Addiction Recovery Books

1. Understanding Addiction: Know Science, No Stigma

By Chuck Smith, Jason Hunt

In this book, doctors and experts in the field Chuck Smith and Jason Hunt point out that addiction is a disease, no less so than diabetes or heart disease, and it needs to be treated as such.

The authors discuss the science involved in substance abuse disorder as well as:

• Risk Factors
• Screening and Intervention
• Detox
• Treatment Strategies
• Pros and Cons of AA
• Long-Term Success

2. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

By Gabor Maté

Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor, this #1 international bestseller, combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction—its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery.

3. The Addiction Recovery Workbook

By Paula A. Freedman

Author Paula A. Freedman, a highly experienced addiction specialist, offers her expertise and insights to help readers navigate the challenges and complexities of maintaining sobriety.

Readers will find a wealth of information, including practical exercises, thought-provoking questions, and mindfulness-based practices that foster self-reflection and personal growth.

4. Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change

By Jeffrey Foote

Drawing on forty collective years of research and decades of clinical experience, Beyond Addiction goes beyond the theatrics of interventions and tough love to show family and friends how they can use kindness, positive reinforcement, and motivational and behavioral strategies to help someone change.

5. Rewired: A Bold New Approach To Addiction and Recovery

By Erica Spiegelman

Centered on the concept of self-actualization, Rewired will guide you towards not only physical sobriety, but a mental, emotional, and spiritual sobriety by learning to identify key principles within yourself, including authenticity, honesty, gratitude, and understanding a need for solitude.
 
Rewired addresses the whole self; just as addiction affects every part of one’s life, so too must its treatment.

6. Never Enough: the neuroscience and experience of addiction

By Judith Grisel

Judith Grisel is a renowned behavioural neuroscientist and recovering addict who shares what she and other scientists have learned about addiction, enriched by captivating glimpses of her personal journey and offers crucial new insights into how we can solve the epidemic of abuse.

In Never Enough, Grisel reveals the unfortunate bottom line of all regular drug use: there is no such thing as a free lunch. All drugs act on the brain in a way that diminishes their enjoyable effects and creates unpleasant ones with repeated use.

7. Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction

By Maia Szalavitz

This book, challenges both the idea of the addict’s “broken brain” and the notion of a simple “addictive personality,” and offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective.

The author argues that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy.

8. I Love You, More: Short Stories of Addiction, Recovery, and Loss From the Family’s Perspective

By Blake E. Cohen

I Love You More is meant to be an emotional education on the family systems affected by addiction using three, fictional short stories, all with very different endings.

The goal of this quick, easy-to-read, book is to be the conduit that allows you to enter the body and mind of a substance abuser and their family, to see the world through their eyes as they navigate their way through one of the most heart-breaking and gut-wrenching hardships they will ever face.

9. The Addiction Recovery Skills Workbook

By Suzette Glasner-Edwards

This workbook offers integrative, seven-step program to help you finally overcome drug and alcohol addiction, once and for all.

Addiction expert Suzette Glasner-Edwards offers evidence-based techniques fusing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing, and mindfulness-based relapse prevention to help you move past your addictive behaviors.

10. The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction

By Rebecca E. Williams , Julie S. Kraft

This powerful and compassionate workbook will help you identify the root of your addictive behaviors while providing healthy coping strategies to deal with the stress, anxiety, and depression that can come from experiencing a loss.

This workbook will help you:

• Determine the function your addiction is serving
• Develop healthy coping skills for dealing with loss
• Accept your thoughts and emotions
• Avoid addiction “triggers”
• Heal broken relationships and build a support system