Download or read book Glorious Rock Bottom written by Bryony Gordon and published by . This book was released on 2021-05-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book No Such Thing as Normal written by Bryony Gordon and published by Headline. This book was released on 2021-01-07 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Mental illness has led to some of the worst times of my life... but it has also led to some of the most brilliant. Bad things happen, but good things can come from them. And strange as it might sound, my mental health has been vastly improved by being mentally ill.' From depression and anxiety to personality disorders, one in four of us experience mental health issues every year and, in these strange and unsettling times, more of us than ever are struggling to cope. In No Such Thing As Normal, Bryony offers sensible, practical advice, covering subjects such as sleep, addiction, worry, medication, self-image, boundary setting, therapy, learned behaviour, mindfulness and, of course - as the founder of Mental Health Mates - the power of walking and talking. She also strives to equip those in need of help with tools and information to get the best out of a poorly funded system that can be both frightening and overwhelming. The result is a lively, honest and direct guide to mental health that cuts through the Instagram-wellness bubble to talk about how each of us can feel stronger, better and just a little bit less alone.

Download or read book Mad Girl written by Bryony Gordon and published by Headline. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB 2017 PICK A new Sunday Times bestseller from Bryony Gordon, Telegraph columnist and author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers. For readers who enjoyed Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive and Ruby Wax's Sane New World, Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness. 'I loved it. A brilliant fast and funny and frank look at something that absolutely needs to be talked about in this way' Matt Haig Bryony Gordon has OCD. It's the snake in her brain that has told her ever since she was a teenager that her world is about to come crashing down: that her family might die if she doesn't repeat a phrase 5 times, or that she might have murdered someone and forgotten about it. It's caused alopecia, bulimia, and drug dependency. And Bryony is sick of it. Keeping silent about her illness has given it a cachet it simply does not deserve, so here she shares her story with trademark wit and dazzling honesty. A hugely successful columnist for the Telegraph, a bestselling author, and a happily married mother of an adorable daughter, Bryony has managed to laugh and live well while simultaneously grappling with her illness. Now it's time for her to speak out. Writing with her characteristic warmth and dark humour, Bryony explores her relationship with her OCD and depression as only she can. Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.

Download or read book From Rock Bottom to Mountain Tops written by Frankie M. Powers and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After three weeks of having relapsed, I entered Hanley Rehabilitation Center in West Palm Beach. A rehabilitation center for alcoholics and drug addicts. I had no idea what I had in store for me but having been in Marine Corp boot camp over twenty years prior, I prepared mentally for the journey before me. My experiences throughout my life had been rooted in heartache, disappointments and anger. I resented many people around me. I continued playing over and over in my mind my regrets, past failures and feelings of not being enough to those I loved. Upon exiting Hanley, I surrendered. I fully surrendered to life, to control, and to the only One who dictated the obstacles and blessings that would come my way, I surrendered to God. I took a two-year hiatus traveling throughout the country, discovering endless possibilities and a far different way of living. I learned to fully love myself, which, without that, I would have stayed paralyzed and stuck in regret, frozen in fear for the rest of my life. I learned about the power of our thoughts, the importance of being present and the need to find fulfillment in life. I became an expert in communication skills and relationships and became aware that most of us don't even see a glimpse of what is possible and attainable in them. I learned that where you focus your attention, your energy and emotions in your life attach to that. What I also discovered, along the way, was my purpose for living, my passion, the one thing that sets my soul on fire. I became aware of my lifelong love affair with people, with watching people glow and helping people grow. I learned that every single individual is born with certain inherent gifts given to them by their Creator, that they are graced with, that are uniquely theirs. It is their mission in life to discover what that is and gift it to the world. I learned the value of serving my fellow man and being a giver rather than a taker in every opportunity presented. Every experience I share with you in this book, my memoir, has made me the man I am today. There is nothing that has occurred or happened to me that was an accident or a mistake. In my journey, it was through the virtues of faith, hope and love that overcame and conquered any and all obstacles and hardships that I had ever endured. I now spend my life giving unto others as an empowerment coach, life guide and strategist; to explore with anyone who I have been blessed with their presence, with the opportunity to jointly find what it is holding them back from having the breakthroughs in life they are destined to discover. I have completely reshaped my physical body, as well as my emotional, spiritual, and mental makeup. I have overcome obesity, alcoholism, divorce, heartache, depression, anxiety, as well as, suicidal thoughts and desires. I may not know the hardships that some of you are going through, but I understand what it feels like to feel hopeless, alone and afraid. The transformation process was a long journey, but the end result has given me a whole new perspective in life. In doing so, I have become a better man, friend, father and human being. My test has become my testimony. Everything you desire in your life is there for the taking if you can get out of your own way. Seek and thee shall find, knock and the door shall be opened. It's time to break free to have the life that you were destined to live.

Download or read book Because We Are Bad written by Lily Bailey and published by Canbury Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WASHINGTON POST TOP 50 NON-FICTION BOOK 'Extremely compelling' - The Guardian 'Searing... funny, eloquent and honest' - Psychologies 'Remarkable... I hope this book finds a wide readership' - Washington Post __________________________________________ As a child, Lily Bailey knew she was bad. By the age of 13, she had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and spied upon her classmates. Only by performing a series of secret routines could she correct her wrongdoing. But it was never enough. She had a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and it came with a bizarre twist. This true story is from a startling new voice in non-fiction. It lights up the workings of the mind like Mark Haddon or Matt Haig. Anyone who wants to know about OCD, and how to fight back, should read this book. Immerse yourself in a new world. Reviews Model and journalist Bailey offers an authentic and stunning account of her struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in this beautifully-rendered memoir. - Publishers Weekly I laughed, I cried. I could not put this book down. Intensely moving with flashes of black humour, Because We Are Bad is the compelling account of one young woman's experience of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. - Rosanna Greenstreet writes for The Guardian Often as chilling as Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, but also full of so much inner and external turbulence that it reminded me at times of The Bourne Identity and Memento.Because We Are Bad is an intense heart-rending roller coaster of a book... - Will Black, Huffpost UK A harrowingly honest memoir of profound psychological struggle. In her courageous book, the author offers compelling insight into the pain and destructive power of OCD as well as the resilience of a young woman determined to beat the odds. - Kirkus Reviews A fascinating read. It's brilliantly written; I felt inside your head - Ray D'Arcy Show, RTE Radio 1 Because We Are Bad is an emotional, challenging read. Lily takes us deep into the heart of the illness but she is also a deft writer, and even the darkest moments are peppered with wit and wry observations. - James Lloyd, OCD-UK Remarkable. She writes with literary poise and a gift for mordant observation and self-deprecating humor that belie her youth. I hope this book finds a wide readership. - Scott Stossel, Washington Post It's a fascinating read... Buy the book! Buy the book! - Jo Good, BBC Radio London

Download or read book Glorious Rock Bottom written by Bryony Gordon and published by Headline. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DARK, HONEST, UPLIFTING. THIS IS A SOBRIETY MEMOIR LIKE NO OTHER. 'This is a book that tears down walls.' Marian Keyes 'Bryony Gordon is a terrific, compassionate writer whose razor-sharp honesty slices through every sentence of this compelling memoir.' Liz Day 'Poetic, raw and very important.' Fearne Cotton Bryony Gordon is a respected journalist, a number-one bestselling author and an award-winning mental health campaigner. She is also an alcoholic. In Glorious Rock Bottom Bryony opens up about a toxic twenty-year relationship with alcohol and drugs and explains exactly why hitting rock bottom - for her, a traumatic event and the abrupt realisation that she was putting herself in danger, time and again - saved her life. Known for her trademark honesty, Bryony re-lives the darkest and most terrifying moments of her addiction, never shying away from the fact that alcoholism robs you of your ability to focus on your family, your work, your health, your children, yourself. And then, a chink of light as the hard work begins - rehab; twelve-step meetings; endless, tedious, painful self-reflection - a rollercoaster ride through self-acceptance, friendship, love and hope, to a joy and pride in staying sober that her younger self could never have imagined. Shining a light on the deep connection between addiction and mental health issues, Glorious Rock Bottom is in turn, shocking, brutal, dark, funny, hopeful and uplifting. It is a sobriety memoir like no other.

Download or read book I Swear I ll Make It Up to You written by Mishka Shubaly and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An odyssey of family, heartbreak, violence, punk rock, brokenness, broke-ness, sex, love, loss, drinking, drinking, drinking, and an unlikely savior: distance running. A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a twenty-four-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus, then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother, but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol. Almost two decades later, Shubaly's life changed again when a fateful five-mile run after a bar fight inspired him to clean up his life. And when he finally reconnected with his estranged father, he discovered the story of his childhood was radically different from what he thought he knew. In this fiercely honest, emotional, and self-laceratingly witty book, Shubaly relives his mistakes, misfortunes, and infrequent good decisions: the disastrous events that fractured his life; his incendiary romances; his hot-and-cold career as a rock musician; meeting his newborn nephew while out of his gourd on cough syrup. I Swear I'll Make It Up to You is an apology for choices Shubaly never thought he'd live long enough to regret, a journey so far down the low road that it took him years of running to claw his way back.

Download or read book Girl Walks Out of a Bar written by Lisa F. Smith and published by SelectBooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lisa Smith was a bright, young lawyer at a prestigious firm in NYC in the early nineties when alcoholism started to take over her life. What was once a way of escaping her insecurity and negativity became a means of coping with the anxiety and stress of an impossible workload. Girl Walks Out of a Bar is Smith's darkly comic and wrenchingly honest story of her formative years, the decade of alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, and her road to recovery. Smith describes how her spiraling circumstances conspired with her predisposition to depression and self-medication, nurturing an environment ripe for addiction to flourish. Girl Walks Out of a Bar is a candid portrait of alcoholism through the lens of gritty New York realism. Beneath the façade of success lies the reality of addiction.

Download or read book Happy written by Fearne Cotton and published by Orion Spring. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is a way to release what's going on inside your head and to keep heading towards the good stuff. The simple stuff. The stuff that's going to really hit up that happiness on a deep and nourishing level. Whether you dip into these pages every now and then when you feel you need it, or use it daily as a positive exercise, I hope it brings you much relief, joy and calm. Amen to the pen." - Fearne Cotton For many of us, life can feel like it's moving too fast with pressure bearing down on us from all sides - whether that's from school or work, family or social media. As a result, we find ourselves frazzled, lost and - too often - feeling blue. Drawing on her own experiences and including expert advice, HAPPY offers practical ways of finding joy each and every day. Happiness isn't a mountain to climb, it's just one foot in front of the other on the path of life, and here you'll find little steps that will help make the differences that count. With workbook elements to help you start and end the day well; get in touch with your creative side; and find peace through written exercises, simple practical ideas and visualisations, these are daily tricks and reminders to help you unlock that inner happiness.

Download or read book Eat Drink Run written by Bryony Gordon and published by Headline. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new hilarious and inspirational memoir from Sunday Times no. 1 bestselling author Bryony Gordon. 'A courageous account that will inspire us all - bloody brilliant' Fearne Cotton 'An honest and damn funny book about daring to dream, about chafing and Vaseline, and running through the pain. I raced through it without getting a stitch' Matt Haig Bryony Gordon was not a runner. A loafer, a dawdler, a drinker, a smoker, yes. A runner, no. But, as she recovered from the emotional rollercoaster of opening up her life in her mental health memoir MAD GIRL, she realised that there were things that might actually help her: getting outside, moving her body and talking to others who found life occasionally challenging. As she ran, she started to shake off the limitations that had always held her back and she saw she had actually imposed them on herself. Why couldn't she be a runner? In April 2017, Bryony Gordon ran all 26.2 miles of the London Marathon. In Eat, Drink, Run., we join her as she trains for this daunting task and rises to the challenge one step at the time. Of course, on top of the aching muscles and blistered feet, there's also the small matter of getting a certain royal to open up about his mental health. Through it all, Bryony shows us that extraordinary things can happen to everyone, no matter what life throws our way. What readers are saying about Eat, Drink, Run.: 'One of the best things about this book is how Bryony manages to make you laugh, make you tearful, but ultimately hopeful about yourself and your own outlook on life and mental health' 'I laughed, I cried, I got inspired to run again' 'Bryony at her best by far! Honest, endearing, beautifully written. We all can relate in some way, if you are in doubt about how you feel, or indeed you are a person that says I can't - read this because you can, we all can'

Download or read book The Wrong Knickers written by Bryony Gordon and published by Headline. This book was released on 2015 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bryony Gordon survived her adolescence by dreaming about the life she'd have in her twenties: the perfect job; the lovely flat; the amazing boyfriend. The reality was something of a shock. Her Telegraph column was a diary of her daily screw-ups; she lived in a series of squalid shoe boxes; and her most meaningful relationship of the entire decade was with a Marlboro Light. Here in the Sunday Times bestselling THE WRONG KNICKERS Bryony busts open the glamorized myth of what it means to be a young (perpetually) single girl about London town, and shares the horrible and hilarious truth. The truth about picking up a colleague at the STI clinic; sinking into debt to fund a varied diet of wine, crisps and vodka; and how it feels when your dream man turns out to be a one night stand who hands you someone else's knickers in the morning. Bryony's wonderfully ridiculous and ultimately redemptive story is essential reading for everyone whose 'best years' weren't quite what they were expecting...

Download or read book Alive AF written by Samantha Perkins and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Married mother of two discovers the part alcohol has played in her lifelong struggle with anxiety.Raised in rural Kentucky in the 1980s, Perkins takes her readers on a nostalgic journey as she evolves from a little girl who idealized the beautiful, happy people in beer commercials to a college kid who loses her full-ride scholarship for drinking in the dorms. She grew up thinking the world was divided into drinkers and drunks. Drinkers used alcohol to celebrate-freedom, good weather, youth. Drunks were sweaty, messy losers day-drinking in sticky bars.She spent her young adult life searching-in college parties, in dark bars wearing Forever 21 outfits, in antidepressants that put her in a fog, in dead-end relationships, in bags of overpriced kale from Whole Foods, in local breweries serving hand-crafted beer made from organic hops. She was searching for something to stop the racing thoughts, the irrational moments of panic, the feeling disaster is about to strike. She didn't miss work, her house was clean, her kids were happy. Clearly, she was not an alcoholic. Have you ever taken one of those online quizzes to see if you're an alcoholic? You know, the ones that ask questions like: Do you often miss work or family obligations due to drinking? Never. Does your drinking put you in dangerous situations? Nope. Does your drinking cause persistent health problems? Absolutely not...unless you count debilitating anxiety.Perkins tried tweaking her diet, exercise, sleep and many other health practices while attempting to get her anxiety under control. While still drinking daily. Despite her efforts at avoidance, she finally had to face the truth that alcohol consumption was getting into the way of her living. But how do you get help for drinking if you're not an alcoholic? Hours of online research finally led her to a blog that changed the way she would think about alcohol forever. She finally connected the dots. Alcohol was making everything worse-not better. Read how Samantha Perkins became Alive AF (Alcohol Free) and found the tools to rebuild a life full of love, support and genuine human connection.

Download or read book Rock Bottom written by Paul Merson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An autobiography of the England and Arsenal football star, Paul Merson. It includes a frank account of Merson's addiction to drugs, alcohol and gambling and of his rehabilitation. Paul's wife, Lorraine describes how she coped with her husband's addictions and her role in his survival.

Download or read book Drinking written by Caroline Knapp and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 1999-08-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life. Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek

Download or read book The Sober Diaries written by Clare Pooley and published by Coronet. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BY THE AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT, THE BRAVE AND FUNNY MEMOIR THAT IS CHANGING LIVES. How one mother gave up drinking and started living. This is Bridget Jones Dries Out. Clare Pooley is a Cambridge graduate and was a Managing Partner at one of the world's biggest advertising agencies, and yet by eighteen months ago she'd become an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day, and spending her evenings Googling 'Am I an alcoholic?' In a desperate bid to turn her life around, she quit drinking and started a blog. She called it Mummy Was a Secret Drinker. This book is the story of a year in Clare's life. A year that started with her quitting booze having been drinking more than a bottle of wine every day. It sees her starting a hugely successful blog, then getting and beating breast cancer. By the end of the year she is booze free and cancer free, two stone lighter and with a life that is so much richer, healthier and more rewarding than ever before. Sober Diaries is an upbeat, funny and positive look at how to live life to the full. Interwoven within Clare's own very personal and frank story is research and advice, and answers to questions like: How do I know if I'm drinking too much? How will I cope at parties? What do I say to friends and family? How do I cope with cravings? Will I lose weight? What if my partner still drinks? And many more.

Download or read book Ninety Days written by Bill Clegg and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal is ninety. Just ninety clean and sober days to loosen the hold of the addiction that caused Bill Clegg to lose everything. With six weeks of his most recent rehab behind him he returns to New York and attends two or three meetings each day. It is in these refuges that he befriends essential allies including Polly, who struggles daily with her own cycle of recovery and relapse, and the seemingly unshakably sober Asa. At first, the support is not enough: Clegg relapses with only three days left. Written with uncompromised immediacy, Ninety Days begins where Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man ends-and tells the wrenching story of Clegg's battle to reclaim his life. As any recovering addict knows, hitting rock bottom is just the beginning.

Download or read book Like a River Glorious written by Rae Carson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sequel to the New York Times–bestselling and National Book Award longlisted Walk on Earth a Stranger. After her harrowing journey west to California, Lee Westfall has finally found a new home—one rich in gold, thanks to her magical power, a power that seems to be changing every day. But this home is rich in other ways, too: with friends who are searching for a place to be themselves, just as she is, and with love. Jefferson—her longtime best friend—hasn’t stopped trying to win her heart. And Lee is more and more tempted to say yes. But her uncle Hiram hasn’t given up his quest to get Lee and her power under his control. When she’s kidnapped and taken to him, Lee sees firsthand the depths of her uncle’s villainy. Yet Lee’s magic is growing. Gold no longer simply sings to her, it listens. It obeys her call. Is it enough to destroy her uncle once and for all? Rae Carson, acclaimed author of the Girl of Fire and Thorns series, takes us deep into the gold fields as she continues this sweeping saga of magic and history, and an unforgettable heroine who must come into her own. Like a River Glorious is the second book in the Gold Seer trilogy.