UP FROM THE PAVEMENT: Triumph over Grief and Trauma through Medicine, Miracles, Love, Laughter, and Faith

UP FROM THE PAVEMENT: Triumph over Grief and Trauma through Medicine, Miracles, Love, Laughter, and Faith PDF Author: Marlo Archer
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1304010139
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
The candid, narcotic-fueled account of Marlo Archer's restoration to physical, emotional, and spiritual health following her nearly-fatal motorcycle accident in 2008 and the somber, heart-felt account of her beloved father's fatal battle with addiction and the scars she still bears from both.

From Junkie to Judge

From Junkie to Judge PDF Author: Mary Beth O'Connor
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0757324568
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
From a junkie addicted to methamphetamines to a federal judge, Mary Beth O’Connor’s memoir shares her inspiring journey from rock bottom to resilience as she forged a personal path to recovery from trauma and addiction. Searing, unsettling, and ultimately triumphant, Judge O'Connor's debut memoir takes readers on a wild ride through the rock-bottom underbelly of intravenous drug addiction to the hallowed halls of justice where she rose to the pinnacle of success as a federal judge. With wit and unabashed honesty, O’Connor shares her remarkable three-phase journey: the abuse and trauma that drove her to teenage drug use, the chaos that ensued from her addiction; and how she developed a personalized secular recovery plan that led to twenty-nine years of sobriety. Her story proves any addict can recover and anyone can build a productive and happy life, no matter how low the bottom or how deep the pain. Within a week of being born, O’Connor was dropped off at a convent. When she was brought into her home, her mother focused on her own needs and desires, ignoring her young child. When she was nine, her stepfather kicked her in the stomach for spilling milk, beat her when she didn’t clean a plate to his satisfaction, and molested her when she was twelve. A few months later, with her first sip of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine, her life changed. She felt euphoric and relaxed. So she got drunk as often as possible, adding pot, then pills, then acid. At sixteen, she found her drug of choice--methamphetamine. With her first snort, she experienced true joy for the first time. When this high was no longer sufficient, she turned to the needle and shot up. During the next sixteen years, she descended into a severe meth addiction, working her way down the corporate ladder, destroying relationships, and shattering her physical and emotional well-being. At thirty-two, she entered rehab, where she was ordered to submit to the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. As an atheist, turning her will and her life over to a higher power was not an option, and she refused to agree she was powerless. Told to comply or fail, she bravely created a new path that combined ideas from multiple programs and even incorporated some AA concepts. Clean and sober now for more nearly three decades, she is proof that anyone can find their sober self, their best self, no matter how far they have fallen. Along with her inspiring story, she offers a comprehensive checklist of questions for readers to ask themselves as they take the brave steps toward recovery, offering a powerful blueprint for personal change.

Triumph of the Heart

Triumph of the Heart PDF Author: Megan Feldman Bettencourt
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 039918483X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
2016 Books For A Better Life Award winner Drawing on the latest research and remarkable tales of forgiveness from around the world, journalist Megan Feldman explores how forgiveness, when practiced in the right ways, can save lives, make us happier and healthier, and lead to a better world. Veteran journalist Megan Feldman was still smarting over a bitter breakup when she began working on a feature article about a father named Azim who had truly forgiven the man who killed his son. She had found herself totally and completely unable to forgive her ex-boyfriend, and yet Azim had managed to forgive his own son’s murderer. Forgiveness has long been touted by religious leaders as a moral imperative. But Megan wanted to know exactly what it means from a scientific perspective, and why forgiving those who have wronged you is one of the best things you can do for yourself. In Triumph of the Heart, Feldman embarks on a quest to understand this complex idea, drawing on the latest research showing that forgiveness can provide a range of health benefits, from relieving depression to decreasing high blood pressure. The journey takes her from New Zealand and the Maori who practice their own form of restorative justice, to a principal in Baltimore who uses forgiveness techniques to eradicate violence in her school, and to recovered addicts who restarted their lives by seeking and receiving forgiveness. She travels to Rwanda to learn about forgiveness in the face of unthinkable atrocities. This book is a guide for how the practice of forgiveness can help us all in our search for a satisfying, fulfilling, good life.

Sleeping with the Enemy and the Enemy was Me!

Sleeping with the Enemy and the Enemy was Me! PDF Author: Dorothy R. Blount
Publisher: Dorothy Blount
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
From trauma to triumph, the author invites the reader to explore her journey of overcoming a cycle of abandonment, abuse and rejection through courage, resilience and determination. Dorothy’s transformative journey transparently details her own experiences from her childhood to adulthood. She reminds you that you are not alone as there are countless others who have traveled along similar paths. This book aims to help you discover who you are, gain clarity about your past and present events as you reframe your thoughts to become more beneficial in supporting a better you! It is never too early nor too late to begin your journey of healing through self-love and self-compassion. One primary goal of this book is to teach unconditional love of self and others. In the end, Dorothy believes you will understand and see how she became the enemy of herself and then discovered how to break free!

Spilled Milk

Spilled Milk PDF Author: K. L. Randis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615835600
Category : Child abuse
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Based on a true story, Brooke Nolan is a battered child who makes an anonymous phone call about the escalating brutality in her home. When Social Services jeopardize her safety, condemning her to keep her father's secret, it's a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she's been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home. When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved. "Beautifully written, hauntingly real, Spilled Milk is a must read for any young adult today." - F.P Lione, Author

Flashback Girl

Flashback Girl PDF Author: Lise Deguire
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781734932003
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
At the age of four, Dr. Lise Deguire suffered third-degree burns over 65% of her body. In this memoir, she tells her story as a burn survivor and growing up in her dysfunctional family. Despite the seriousness of the subject, the tone of the book is positive, humorous, and inspiring.

Call Me Tuesday

Call Me Tuesday PDF Author: Leigh Byrne
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781463690021
Category : Abused children
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"At eight-years-old, Tuesday Storm's childhood is forever lost when tragedy sends her family spiraling out of control into irrevocable dysfunction. For no apparent reason, Tuesday is singled out from her siblings, blamed for her family's problems, and targeted for unspeakable abuse. Suddenly, the loving environment she's come to know becomes an endless nightmare of twisted punishments as she's forced to confront the dark cruelty lurking inside the mother she idolizes. Based on a true story, Call Me Tuesday recounts a family's painful journey through the hidden horrors of child abuse, and a young girl's physical and mental torment at the mercy of the monster in her mother's clothes -- a monster she doesn't know how to stop loving."--Back cover.

Milk Fed

Milk Fed PDF Author: Melissa Broder
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982142510
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Esquire, BookPage, and more This darkly hilarious and “delicious new novel that ravishes with sex and food” (The Boston Globe) from the acclaimed author of The Pisces and So Sad Today is a “precise blend of desire, discomfort, spirituality, and existential ache” (BuzzFeed). Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, through obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting. Rachel soon meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey. “A ruthless, laugh-out-loud examination of life under the tyranny of diet culture” (Glamour) Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is “riotously funny and perfectly profane” (Refinery 29) from “a wild, wicked mind” (Los Angeles Times).

I'm Glad My Mom Died

I'm Glad My Mom Died PDF Author: Jennette McCurdy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982185821
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A memoir by American former actress and singer Jennette McCurdy about her career as a child actress and her difficult relationship with her abusive mother who died in 2013

Dream of Night

Dream of Night PDF Author: Heather Henson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442406119
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Untamable. Damaged. Angry. Once full of promise and life, now lost in the shadows of resentment and detachment, this is Dream of Night's story—and it is also Shiloh’s. One is a thoroughbred racehorse, the other an eleven-year-old foster child. Starved to the bone, Dream of Night is still a very powerful animal, kicking, bucking, screaming to show his strength. Shiloh has been starved in other ways—starved of affection, starved of stability and she lashes out too…with sarcasm. This injured and abused racehorse has a lot in common with punky Shiloh and by chance they both find themselves under the care of Jessalyn DiLima—a last stop for each before the state takes more drastic measures—sending the girl to a “residential facility” and the horse to a vet...for euthanizing. Jess is giving them a second chance, a last chance—but she fosters animals and children like this for a reason—she’s a little broken, too. And she knows what it’s like to have lost nearly everything she loves. As the horse warms up to the girl and the girl lets her guard down for the horse, the three of them become an unlikely family. They recognize their similarities in order to heal their pasts, but not before one last tragedy threatens to take it all away.