Do you love reading books about recovery and mental health? Do you love book clubs? If you answered YES to both of these questions and #QUITLIT is your jam, then we invite you to join us for our new monthly Boozeless Babes Book Club hosted by Amy Liz Harrison, host of the Eternally Amy podcast.
July 2022 – Mean Baby by Selma Blair
#QUITLIT The Boozeless Bookclub: Mean Baby, A Memoir of Growing Up by Selma Blair – Check out our 1st book for the Boozeless Babes Book Club and listen to Amy Liz Harrison and her friends discuss the book at length.
August 2022 – Refocusing My Family by Amber Cantorna
Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God
In 2012, at the age of twenty-seven, Amber Cantorna came out to her family as gay. As the daughter of a Focus on the Family executive, telling this truth came at a high cost.
Refocusing My Family is Amber‘s journey from the suffocating expectations of Focus on the Family to the liberating joy of choosing her own family.
After struggling under the weight of perfectionism, reputation, and keeping up appearances, Amber boldly stepped into her true identity. In the process, she discovered the true love of God.
September 2022 – The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety: My Life in 12 Steps
The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety: My Life in 12 Steps
A darkly humorous and inspiring first-person account of the larger-than-life exploits and ultimate redemption of an Irish gangster-turned-actor-turned-sober-storyteller—written in collaboration with the creators of Silicon Valley.
Richie Stephens is an actor who often plays hardened gangsters and criminals. This is easy for him because he was a drug trafficker, kidnapper, drug addict, alcoholic, and all-around criminal himself. His life twisted and turned in harrowing self-destructive adventures that took him from his native Ireland to San Francisco, Australia, and finally, Los Angeles, coalescing into a classic tale of a man trying to run from his problems by moving to new and more exotic locations—a hard and painful realization that comes at a point in which he’s about to take his own life. The only reason there is a story to tell is because he did not. Instead, he found help, and in doing so, found himself. More than that, he found that help comes in different forms, and oftentimes it just takes the right thought to hit at the right time for it all to make sense.
The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety chronicles Richie’s descent into the abyss of crime and dependency, and how his personal understanding of freedom allowed him to become the functioning positive force he is today. Richie’s story is sprawling and epic, but the key to the book is the same key to his recovery: the 12 Steps. With his own flair and original understanding of life and the world, he followed the 12 Steps to find the clarity he needed to save his own life and evolve into a positive force for others. As Richie says, “Hopefully if people see that someone as fucked up as me could change their life, then there is hope for anyone.”
The Gangster’s Guide to Sobriety is gripping in its honesty and openness. Even at its darkest moments, there is a keen understanding of the absurd nature of life as the author comes to grips with his failings and his faith, while also entering a place of self-acceptance. This is a story of redemption and the power of the human spirit, and how sometimes you have to turn to something greater than yourself.
October 2022 – Your Brain’s Not Broken
Your Brain’s Not Broken by Tamara Rosier, PhD – October is ADHD Awareness Month
If you have ADHD, your brain doesn’t work in the same way as a “normal” or neurotypical brain does because it’s wired differently. You and others may see this difference in circuitry as somehow wrong or incomplete. It isn’t. It does present you with significant challenges like time management, organization skills, forgetfulness, trouble completing tasks, mood swings, and relationship problems.
In Your Brain’s Not Broken, Dr. Tamara Rosier explains how ADHD affects every aspect of your life. You’ll finally understand why you think, feel, and act the way you do. Dr. Rosier applies her years of coaching others to offer you the critical practical tools that can dramatically improve your life and relationships.
Anyone with ADHD–as well as anyone who lives with or loves someone with ADHD–will find here a compassionate, encouraging guide to living well and with hope.
November 2022 – Everybody Fights: So Why Not Get Better at It?
Everybody Fights: So Why Not Get Better at It? by Kim & Penn Holderness
Learn how to fight better and end your arguments with your partner feeling closer, more loved, and better understood.
We take our cars in for oil changes. We mow our lawns and pull weeds. Why don’t we do maintenance on our marriages? This relationship is the most important one we will ever have, so why not get better at it?
For the last several years, Penn and Kim Holderness of The Holderness Family have done the hard maintenance and the research to learn how to fight better. With the help of their marriage coach Dr. Christopher Edmonston, they break down their biggest (and in some cases, funniest) fights. How did a question about chicken wings turn into a bra fight (no, not a bar fight or a bra fight)? How did a roll of toilet paper lead to tears, resentment, and a stint in the guest bedroom?
With their trademark sense of humor and complete vulnerability, Penn and Kim share their 10 most common Fight Fails and how to combat them. Throughout the book, they offer scripts for how to start, continue, and successfully close hard conversations. Couples will emerge equipped to engage and understand, not do battle—and maybe laugh a little more along the way.
In Everybody Fights, couples will learn how to:
- Use “magic words” for healthy conflict resolution
- Address unspoken and unrealistic expectations
- Banish the three Ds of unhealthy communication—distraction, denial, and delay
- Carry individual baggage while helping your partner deal with theirs
Penn and Kim want you to know you’re not alone. Everybody fights. Marriage is messy. Marriage is work. But marriage is worth it. Fight for it!
December 2022 – Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry – Pre-Order Now!
The beloved star of Friends takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this candid, funny, and revelatory memoir that delivers a powerful message of hope and persistence.
“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.
In an extraordinary story that only he could tell―and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it―Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening―as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.
January 2023 – The Cure: What If God Isn’t Who You Think He Is And Neither Are You?
The Cure: What if God isn’t who you think He is and neither are you?
The Cure gives the diagnosis of this century’s religious obsession with sin-management. It has poisoned the Church, obscuring the Original Good News and sending millions away, wounded, angry and cynical, from nearly any organized expression of faith. This newly designed format of The Cure offers an authentic experience in Christ that frees some from a self-rewarded righteousness, and others from a beaten down striving for a righteousness they can never seem to attain. The Cure infuses a relational theology of grace and identity, which alone can heal, free and create sustainable, genuine, loving, life-giving communities.
February 2023 – I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America
I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America by Tyler Merritt
Tyler Merritt’s video “Before You Call the Cops” has been viewed more than 60 million times. The viral video’s main point—the more you know someone, the more empathy, understanding, and compassion you have for that person—is the springboard for this book. By sharing his highs and exposing his lows, Tyler welcomes us into his world, allowing us to get to know him and helping bridge the divides that seem to grow wider every day.
In I Take My Coffee Black, Tyler tells hilarious stories from his own life as a black man in America. He talks about his multi-cultural childhood in Las Vegas that didn’t necessarily prepare him for life in the South, his passion for rap music and musical theater, how Jesus barged in uninvited and changed his life forever (it all started with a Triple F.A.T. Goose jacket) and the shocking events that occurred after his video went viral that no one has heard. Throughout his stories, he also seamlessly weaves in lessons about privilege, the legacy of lynching and sharecropping, and why you don’t cross black mamas, teaching readers about the history of encoded racism that still undergirds our society today.
By turns witty, insightful, touching, and laugh-out-loud funny, I Take My Coffee Black not only paints a portrait of one man’s experience of being Black in America, but also expresses the valuable connections we miss when we do not take the time to learn about others’ lives and experiences. This book enlightens, illuminates, and entertains—ultimately building the kind of empathy that might just be the antidote against the racial injustice in our society.
March 2023 – Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brene Brown
In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.
Over the past two decades, Brown’s extensive research into the experiences that make us who we are has shaped the cultural conversation and helped define what it means to be courageous with our lives. Atlas of the Heart draws on this research, as well as on Brown’s singular skills as a storyteller, to show us how accurately naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power—it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice.
Brown shares, “I want this book to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that, with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves.”
April 2023 – A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions
A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions by Stephen “Steve-O” Glover
Stephen “Steve-O” Glover—social media icon, comedy-touring stalwart, and star of Jackass—delivers a hilarious and practical guide to recovery, relationships, career, and how to keep thriving long after you should be dead.Steve-O is best known for his wildly dangerous, foolish, painful, embarrassing, and sometimes death-defying stunts. At age 48, however, he faces his greatest challenge yet: getting older. A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions is a captivating exploration of life and how to live it by an individual who has already lived way more than a lifetime’s worth of extreme experiences. Steve-O grapples with the right balance between maturity and staying true to yourself, not repeating your “greatest hits,” maintaining sobriety and a healthy regimen, avoiding selfishness, and finding the right partner for life.
Having built a gargantuan and loyal social media following while establishing a successful stand-up career—all after a couple of decades of dubious behavior—Steve-O is proof that anyone can find meaning and fulfillment in life, no matter what path they choose. Packed with self-deprecating wit and gruelingly earned wisdom, A Hard Kick in the Nuts will reverberate with readers everywhere who have lived a lot (sometimes too much) and are now wondering how to approach the years to come. Or maybe just need some good motivation to get out of bed tomorrow. One of many tips: Be your own harshest critic, then cut yourself a break, and enjoy this book.
May 2023 – A Polaroid Guy in a Snapchat World
A Polaroid Guy in a Snapchat World
Fifty-something David Spade is letting it all hang out. Older (yes), wiser (debatable), in A Polaroid Guy in a Snapchat World, the actor, comedian, and SNL alum reflects on his life then and now through a series of candid and hysterical (and occasionally cringe-worthy) takes on everything from why it’s getting harder to date younger women, to what it’s like being a dad now, to suddenly being the “old guy” on set.
Whether he’s musing on the alarming ease of breaking up over text (he’s done it), feuding with a teenage Internet celebrity (spoiler alert, he lost), or dealing with the friend from high school who became his full-time plus-one, when the star of Joe Dirt and Just Shoot Me unleashes his biting wit and dirty mind on the general freakiness of middle-age, he’s in a league of his own (not to be confused with A League of Their Own).
Written and performed for the Audible experience, Spade’s new comic memoir takes listeners along for the sometimes embarrassing and always hilarious ride of getting older in our fleeting “Snapchat World”.
**This product features adult language and themes**
June 2023 – Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
#QUITLIT: Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. #QUITLIT is our curated list of addiction and recovery book reviews. From addiction and recovery memoirs to fiction and self-help, we believe all Sober Curators should be well-read. You can also find us on Goodreads here.
What’s on your nightstand? We want to hear about what you’re reading right now and the addiction and recovery books you can’t live without. Email us at thesobercurator@gmail.com
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