Books on Addiction

Recommend books on addiction and recovery.

Do you have recommendations? If so please share in the Comments section below.

Recovered: How an Accident, Alcohol, and Addiction Led Me to God by Robby Gallaty

From Amazon.com

Robby Gallaty is not who you think he is.

In Recovered, pastor and author Robby Gallaty tells the story of how God radically saved him from his addictions and called him into a life of discipleship.

Robby grew up in a very religious Catholic family who attended church every Sunday and confession on Saturday if needed. Very rarely did he miss a Saturday night dinner and a movie with his parents and sister Lori. You can imagine how devastated they were when Robby stole $15,000 from them to fuel his drug addiction. Two years earlier, he was rear-ended on his way home from work by an 18-wheeler. Two herniated discs in his neck and back forced him to rely on pharmaceutical drugs to cope with the pain. Within three months, he transitioned to street drugs, heroine, and cocaine, after blowing through his thirty-day prescription in two weeks. Robbing his parents was the only option to prolong his drug habit. 

Shortly thereafter, Robby hit rock bottom. But God wasn’t done with him. After a trip to rehab followed by a relapse and a second rehab visit, Robby surrendered his life to Christ, and nothing has ever been the same. This story—a story of salvation and new life—is for any reader who:

• wonders if God is done with them
• has messed up time and time again
• is battling drug or alcohol addiction or other destructive behaviors
• has a loved one in the throes of addiction
• needs to be reminded of the miraculous salvation found in the gospel

The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life by Seth Haines

From Amazon.com

We all have our habits to “help” when life gets hard. Yet there’s only one force that can offer us true healing from life’s pain. Join award-winning writer Seth Haines in The Book of Waking Up for a guided experience into the Divine Love of God that transforms a life.

The inevitable pain of life gives us many reasons to check out–and many ways to do it. Alcohol, entertainment, pills, shopping, porn, chasing success, cashing checks, and collecting social media “likes”–these and so many other things anesthetize us from the wounds of everyday living. As Seth Haines wrote in his award-winning book, Coming Clean, “We’re all drunk on something.”

In his compelling follow-up, The Book of Waking Up, Seth invites you into the story of healing. He invites you to see your coping mechanisms for what they are–lesser lovers, which cannot bring the peace, freedom, and wholeness you crave. Through guided reflections, sustainable soul practices, and stories from Seth’s life and others, The Book of Waking Up invites you to wake to your coping mechanisms, find the why behind your pain, and walk into the Divine Love of God.

As Seth writes, “Addiction is misplaced adoration.” Now, join him on a journey toward the only Love worth adoring, the only Love that cures a soul. Join him on the journey to waking up.

Coming Clean: A Story of Faith by Seth Haines

From Amazon.com

Christianity Today Book Award Winner; EPCA Award Finalist

Boldly honest, powerfully told, deeply moving – this is a story about finding yourself. Seth Haines’ memoir holds up a mirror to all of our stories to show the peace that is possible when we release our addictions and receive the healing presence of God.

Sober Mercies by Heather Kopp

From the back cover

As a long-time Christian, Heather Kopp never expected to become an out-of-control alcoholic who hid private stashes of booze all over the place–tucked behind books in her study, zipped into a special compartment in her over-sized purse, at the back of her closet stuffed inside her boots.

During the day she wrote books about God and prayer and family. At night she’d lock herself in the bathroom to guzzle chardonnay. Even as her career and marriage teetered on the brink, Kopp couldn’t get a grip. For her, as for many Christians who struggle with addiction, overwhelming shame and confusion only made things worse. why wasn’t her faith enough to save her?

Meanwhile, as she watched in horror, her grown son descended into his own nightmare of drugs and alcohol. She feared for his life, yet she couldn’t stop drinking long enough to help him — or find a way out for herself.

Until the day every changed.

Engaging, funny, and bracingly honest, Kopp’s story reveals the unique challenges and spiritual conundrums Christians face when they become ensnared in an addiction and the redemption that’s possible when we finally reach the end of ourselves.

Life’s Healing Choices by John Baker

From the front and back cover

FREEDOM FROM YOUR HURTS, HANG-UPS, AND HABITS

An Official Celebrate Recovery resource

John Baker is the founder of Celebrate Recovery, a ministry started at Saddleback Church. Since Celebrate Recovery’s founding in 1991, more than 4 million people have gone through this Christ-centered recovery program. There are currently more than 35,000 churches that have weekly Celebrate Recovery meetings.

ADDICTIONS A Banquet in the Grave by Edward T. Welch

From the back cover

A Worship Disorder

Will we worship ourselves and our own desires, or will we worship the true God?

Scripture reveals addicts’ true condition: like guests at a banquet thrown by “the woman Folly,” they are already in the grave. (Prov. 9:13-18)

Can we not escape our addictions? Following Jesus, we have “immense hope that God can give power so that we are no longer mastered by the addiction.”

GOD is for the Alcoholic by Jerry Dunn

From the back cover

“I am an alcoholic. I know what it is like to burn with a desire to drink that is so overwhelming that family, jobs, and friends mean nothing compared to the desire for liquor. I know what it is like to wake up in a hotel room not knowing where I am or how I got there. I also know the joy of complete deliverance from the power of alcohol addiction and never cease to praise God for such deliverance.”

Author Jerry Dunn discovered there is indeed hope for the alcoholic. God provided his escape at the end of a two-year drunk, when he picked up a Bible in a Texas prison.

God Is for the Alcoholic is the product of that escape. Jerry Dunn knows the road up from alcoholism is long and difficult but that i can be followed with God’s help and through commitment, patience, and diligence.

In this revised edition of God Is for the Alcoholic, read sections on understanding alcoholism, ways to help the alcoholic, and ways the alcoholic can help himself. Discover release from the power of alcohol.