Recovery Road

In Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA, recovering alcoholic A. J. Adams shares insights and wisdom from his own story of skeptic spirituality, and the gifts of acceptance and willingness that he found along the path of recovery.

In Almost Anxious: Is My (or My Loved One's) Worry or Distress a Problem? Dr. Luana Marques offers practical steps to reduce anxiety. Learning to monitor and challenge our negative thoughts can help us find more enjoyment in our days, experience better family and work environments, and eliminate the emotional, mental, and even physical problems that anxiety often causes.

In Finding Your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, Craig Nakken offers tools for discovering options and making choices, especially when the choices aren't clear. In this excerpt, we explore the tension between resistance and acceptance, and how both reveal who we are and what we can be.

In her new book, Just Dandy: Living with Heartache and Wishes, Sandra Swenson writes about leaning into the future with hope and confidence - not that everything will turn out fine, but that, whatever happens, she will act in ways that are true to herself. The new year is an opportunity to keep becoming, keep learning the lessons that come with grief as well as gratitude, and keep living with integrity, grace, and openheartedness.

Jennifer Storm, in her book Awakening Blackout Girl: A Survivor's Guide for Healing from Addiction and Sexual Trauma, brings us along on her journey through trauma and recovery, sharing her missteps as well as personal triumphs. Finding love and pursuing relationships in early recovery can be fraught in the best circumstances; Storm says our search for deep and dependable love must start with ourselves.

In his book Drop the Rock: The Ripple Effect, Fred H. helps us explore Step Ten, and how the habits and practices that we build in a program of recovery create positive effects in us that ripple outward into our relationships and beyond. As we work Step Ten, we come to see that all we can control is the integrity of our response to what happens.

Whether it was stress-eating over the last year of uncertainty and unrest, or the fact that the holidays are upon us again, many of us are thinking about what we put in our bodies, and how what we eat can affect our health - including our recovery. In this excerpt from her book The Recovering Body: Physical and Spiritual Fitness for Living Clean and Sober, author Jennifer Matesa takes a look at the addictive qualities of sugar, and what it does to our minds and bodies.

Brené Brown, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, gives us the permission many of us may not even know we needed these days: to lighten up. We are allowed to experience joy and laughter - even in unpredictable and painful times.

In her book A Kinder Voice: Releasing Your Inner Critics with Mindfulness Slogans, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart offers a simple solution to the many ways we talk ourselves into false beliefs about our aptitudes and gifts: practice. Happiness, she teaches, is worth the effort.

Many of us are running ourselves ragged these days - especially parents or caregivers. In this excerpt from her book A Sober Mom's Guide to Recovery: Taking Care of Yourself to Take Care of Your Kids, Rosemary O'Connor charts a path through the holidays that can help you stay sane and sober, and even enjoy some peace with yourself and your family.