This book reminds us that Tself-help' is a myth; only through Christ can a person experience freedom and deliverance.S--Dr. Jeff Moore, senior pastor, First Baptist Church of Altus, Okla. (Christian)

In 1970, at age 13, Josh Lowenthal used heroin for the first time and began an addiction that would be with him for his whole short life. One-Way Ticket follows Josh on his journey from fleeing early rehab programs in the Northeast as a boy to living on the streets of San Francisco, shoplifting and driving a taxicab to support his habit as a young adult. He entered a downward spiral known to be typical for long-term addicts, was in and out of rehab and jail, by turns hopeful and hopeless about his disease.In this memoir, Rita Lowenthal recreates her son's life, and shows how the lives of his family members and friends were permanently altered by his addiction. It was written in the hopes that the parents of addicts will not feel guilty about their children's choices and will instead develop a greater social perspective about their children's plight.

In this easy-to-read revised and expanded edition of Exit the Maze, Dr. Donna Marks makes the revolutionary claim that there is only one addiction with many faces, and the key to overcoming addiction is self-love. Millions of lives are lost to addiction every year, causing more direct and indirect deaths than any other illness. In a world where many things are uncertain, we do know this: There are many kinds of addiction, and in spite of treatment and everything else we’re doing, addiction is only increasing. Dr. Donna Marks, a renowned psychotherapist, addictions counselor, and teacher of A Course in Miracles for more than thirty years, merges her professional experience and her own personal history of substance dependency to offer a single revolutionary solution to all addictions in this expanded and revised edition of Exit the Maze. No matter what someone is addicted to—alcohol, prescription or illegal drugs, smoking, working, gambling, and so forth—loving yourself is the key to recovery. This doesn’t mean the road is easy or a few acts of self-care will do the trick; the journey to true self-love includes delving deep into your past trauma to understand where your addiction began, addressing those fear-based traumas with compassion and forgiveness, exchanging bad habits with beneficial ones, and staying committed to the recovery process. Allow love to guide you through the maze of addiction and back to living your best life.

A personal, powerful and shocking testimony of life as a heroin addict in Brooklyn in the 1970s and ‘80s. In this gritty, soul-bearing and honest account, Ronn Costabile takes you into a world of addiction and despair. Ronn tells his story with gripping detail and emotion-jerking reality. There is hope, however, for everyone who believes. After 25 years battling a paralyzing heroin and cocaine addiction, state prison time, and 15 years of organized crime, Ronn experienced a powerful conversion at the hand of God in 1987 while incarcerated. As his life was slowly being restored, he connected with Brooklyn Teen Challenge, a faith-based Drug Rehabilitation Center, where he then began as a volunteer in 1990. Six years later he became intake coordinator and soon afterwards director of the Brooklyn Men’s program.

A story about life in Northeast Louisiana beginning as a child and ending as an old man Lots of stories and unique individuals with strong spiritual advice in the end.

Drugs and drug use are an integral part of human culture. Yet we know hardly anything about drugs, at least not the kind of knowledge that would help us to understand how drugs affect people and how people beome addicted to drugs. This is most surprising in the light of the vast amount of knowledge accumulated in the sciences. Psychoanalysis might not be an obvious choice for the treatment of addiction. Nevertheless, it is in an excellent position to make a contribution to a problem that has so far defied much of our understanding. By inviting people to speak about themselves, psychoanalysis has established a unique way of collecting clinical material, a material that surely must be immediately relevant coming as it does from the horse's mouth. With addiction on the increase, this fact alone justifies the necessity for a different approach.Providing a theoretical foundation for the argument that psychoanalysis should be seriously considered, and where possible incorporated into the treament of addicts, this thoughtful and innovative book can serve as an orientation in the ongoing front-line battle with addicts and addiction.

Marc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, deception, and crime. But unlike most addicts, Lewis recovered and became a developmental psychologist and researcher in neuroscience. In Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, he applies his professional expertise to a study of his former self, using the story of his own journey through addiction to tell the universal story of addictions of every kind. He explains the neurological effects of a variety of powerful drugs, and shows how they speak to the brain—itself designed to seek rewards and soothe pain—in its own language. And he illuminates how craving overtakes the nervous system, sculpting a synaptic network dedicated to one goal—more—at the expense of everything else.