There’s a lot to learn and think about in early recovery. The more you focus on learning and understanding new, interesting things about yourself, the stronger and more successful you’re likely to be in your recovery journey. This addiction recovery reading list is all about helping you discover, evaluate and change the destructive thoughts, attitudes and behaviors that keep you struggling with addiction.
1. 12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery — Allen Berger, Ph.D.
Sobriety and overall happiness are often sabotaged by culprits like self-defeating thoughts and confusing self-care with selfishness. In this excellent book, Allen Berger discusses 12 of the most common ways to throw a wrench in recovery. He helps people in recovery understand the beliefs and attitudes that lead ever closer to relapse and offers realistic, actionable strategies and tools for working through these problems. This one is a must-have for your addiction recovery reading list.
2. Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path to Recovering from Addiction — Noah Levine
Best-selling author Noah Levine has adapted the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths and Eight-Fold Path into a systematic approach to addiction recovery. This book is essential for your addiction recovery reading list, especially if you feel alienated by the theistic approach of AA but want a systematic method for overcoming cravings, stress and other triggers that can quickly lead to relapse. You don’t need to have any experience with Buddhism or meditation to benefit from the inspiring, practical approach Levine takes to recovery.
3. The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction: A Guide to Coping with the Grief, Stress and Anger that Trigger Addictive Behaviors — Rebecca E. Williams and Julie S. Kraft
This workbook offers a meaningful, hands-on approach to ending addictive behaviors. Whether you’re brand-new to recovery or looking for something to refresh your commitment to sobriety, you’ll find new insights as you delve into your own thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviors surrounding addiction. Focusing on intense life events that have led to strong emotions and negative behaviors, including loss and chronic illness, this workbook is a great addition to your essential addiction recovery reading list. It helps you work through difficult emotions with principles from cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy and other therapies.
4. Rewired: A Bold New Approach to Addiction and Recovery — Erica Spiegelman
Addiction affects the whole self, and whole-self healing is essential for successful long-term recovery and a higher level of happiness and well-being in life. This excellent book offers a new approach to fighting addiction by drawing on the personal power that’s inside everyone. Identifying the key principles within yourself, such as honesty and gratitude, helps you rebuild your life while becoming stronger in your recovery. This holistic self-actualization approach helps you create a recovery plan that changes your ways of thinking and behaving based on your inherent strengths and values.
5. The Mindful Path to Addiction Recovery: A Practical Guide to Regaining Control Over Your Life — Lawrence Peltz, MD
Written by an addiction psychiatrist with over 20 years’ experience in the field, this book draws on the author’s clinical experience with mindfulness-based stress reduction and other mental exercises. Mindfulness helps us change negative emotional states and work through life’s challenges fearlessly to promote strength in recovery. This book explains the fundamentals of addiction and the stages of the recovery process, and it offers specific exercises to improve mindfulness to promote successful ongoing recovery.
An Essential Addiction Recovery Reading List Helps You Stay Sober
Curling up with a good, inspiring read about overcoming addiction can improve your motivation to recover and build on your arsenal of skills and strategies for overcoming self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. The more you read about addiction and recovery, the more information you have at your disposal to not only help you stay sober but to improve your life in many other ways.