Winner Health: Addiction & Recovery The 2020 Best Book Awards
Addiction is a stealth predator. Unrecognized, it will grow and flourish. Unchecked, it destroys.
Marilea Rabasa grew up in post-WWII Massachusetts in a family that lived comfortably and offered her every advantage. But they were also haunted by closely guarded family secrets. Alcoholism reached back through several generations, and it was not openly discussed. Shame and stigma perpetuated the silence. And Marilea became part of this ongoing tragedy.
From an unhappy childhood to a life overseas in the diplomatic service to now, living on an island in Puget Sound, Stepping Stones chronicles Marilea’s experiences, weaving a compelling tale of travel, motherhood, addiction, and heartbreaking loss. The constant thread throughout this story is the many faces and forms of addiction, phantoms that stalk her like an obsessed lover. What, if anything, will free her of the masks she has worn all her life?
Voices from the Fallen takes us on an intimate journey inside the lives of people who have experienced the hell of addiction, the relentless defeat of relapse, and hope of recovery.
Listen to them speak about fear and desperation, hope and optimism. Sit with them in solitary misery, feel their grief over a lost family member, and share their joy with the promise of a renewed life.
Listen closely, for these courageous voices come from those all around us, and can help rebuild shattered families, restore broken hearts, and save lives.
“If, like so many others, you've lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to someone else's addiction, you may find yourself in this book. Fantastic job taking us into the mind of the addict.” — Dean Cain, Actor, Producer
Finalist Health: Addiction & Recovery The 2020 Best Book Awards
In January 2014, Elise Schiller’s youngest child, thirty-three-year-old Giana Natali, died of a heroin overdose while a resident in a treatment program in Boulder County, Colorado. Even if Your Heart Would Listen is about Giana’s life, which was full of accomplishments, and her mental illness, addiction, and death. Using excerpts from the journals, planners, and letters Giana left behind, as well as evidence from her medical records, Schiller dissects her daughter’s treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) at the five residential and several outpatient programs in eastern Pennsylvania where she tried to recover, taking a close look at the lack of continuity and solid medical foundations in the American substance-use treatment system even as she explores the deeply personal experience of her own loss.
Finalist Health: Addiction & Recovery The 2020 Best Book Awards
Are You Trapped in the Addiction Maze?
Addiction is a black hole that threatens to engulf our entire society. In the U.S. alone over 100 million people are addicted, and according to the World Health Organization, over 3.3 million people die from alcohol related deaths alone each year. Billions of dollars spent on prevention and treatment have yet to slow the ever-rising rate of addiction-related deaths. The current models have failed.
Exit the Maze arose from Dr. Donna Marks’ three decades of personal and professional experience as a psychotherapist and educator. She has distilled these lessons down to the essentials:
Learn about the one addiction, and how once we acknowledge and identify the originating cause, we can employ the one cure.
Discover why willpower doesn’t work, and what you can do to leave your addiction behind like a bad relationship, and never want to go back.
Find out the number-one reason most addiction treatment fails and what to do about it.
Finalist Health: Addiction & Recovery The 2020 Best Book Awards
When Janice Morgan, a divorced college professor living in a small town in Kentucky, learns that her son has been arrested for possession of a stolen firearm and drug charges, she feels like she’s living a nightmare. Dylan’s turbulent period as a college student in Cincinnati before this should have warned her, but it’s only now that she realizes how far he has drifted into substance abuse and addiction. As Dylan passes through the judicial system and eventually receives a diversion to drug court, Morgan breathes a sigh of relief—only to find that she, too, has been sentenced right along with him. In the months to follow, she leads a double life: part of it on campus, the rest embarking upon what she calls “rescue missions” to help Dylan stay in the program. But resilience, dark humor, and extreme parenting can only carry you so far. Eventually, Morgan discovers that she needs to gain a deeper understanding of the bipolar and addiction issues her son is dealing with. Will each of them be able to learn fast enough to face these complexities in their lives? Clearly, Dylan isn’t the only one who has recovery work to do.
Finalist Health: Addiction & Recovery The 2020 Best Book Awards
THE FUNNIEST, MOST POPULAR KID IN SCHOOL, Charles Aubrey Rogers suffered from depression and later addiction, then ultimately died by suicide.
"Diary of a Broken Mind" focuses on the relatable story of what led to his suicide at age twenty and answers the why behind his addiction and this cause of death, revealed through a mother’s story and years of Charles’ published and unpublished song lyrics. The closing chapters focus on hope and healing—and how the author found her purpose and forgave herself.
"Diary of a Broken Mind" is a poignant and powerful story written with telling detail and searing honesty—and hope. It is an inside look at the issues of depression, addiction, and suicide affecting so many families. It is a book that won’t easily be forgotten.
