Books like A million little pieces by James Frey

Jeannette Walls' memoir chronicles her turbulent childhood in a dysfunctional, itinerant family, detailing poverty, alcoholism, and homelessness across the United States as she seeks stability and personal growth.

Eighteen‑year‑old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital in 1967, where she documents life in the psychiatric ward, exploring mental illness, recovery, and the cultural landscape of the late 1960s.

Augusten Burroughs recounts his turbulent adolescence spent in a decaying Victorian home run by a psychiatrist, where ordinary rites of childhood give way to a surreal blend of family eccentricity, escape from school, and the early years of a future author.

A chilling memoir detailing Solomon Northup's harrowing experience as a captive on a Louisiana plantation for twelve years, from 1841 to 1853.

Mary Karr’s memoir chronicles her turbulent Texas upbringing, her battle with alcoholism and mental illness, her marriage to a poet, and her eventual path to sobriety and creative renewal.

Howard Dully recounts the chilling aftermath of a childhood lobotomy and his decades‑long struggle to reclaim a life stolen by medical brutality, family complicity, and society’s neglect.

A Dominican‑American teenager in New Jersey struggles with weight, family history, and an unbreakable love, while his dream of becoming a writer clashes with a centuries‑old curse that haunts his lineage.

After a career as a top New York ad copywriter, Augusten Burroughs must confront his own alcoholism while navigating the challenges of sobriety and a troubled relationship in this candid memoir.

"An indispensable practitioner reference and text, this engaging book focuses on how to provide effective help to clients with substance use disorders. The authors, leading authorities on addiction treatment, present a state-of-the-art framework for assessment and treatment. They describe and illustrate evidence-based treatment methods, including cognitive-behavioral, 12-step, motivational, pharmacological, and family approaches. Also addressed are such crucial clinical issues as resistance, maintenance of change, treating co-occurring disorders, and spirituality. Reproducible clinical tools can be photocopied from the book or downloaded and printed in a convenient 8 1/2" x 11" size. Of special utility, the companion Web page features more than 25 additional widely used, ready-to-download assessment tools, assembled in one place for the first time, together with the authors' guidance for using them throughout the process of treatment"--Provided by publisher.

The author grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts, a working-class, unforgiving town north of Boston where in the 17th century women were hanged as witches, in a trash-filled house on a dead-end road surrounded by a river and a salt marsh. Her mother, Kathi, a notorious local figure, was a drug addict and sometimes dealer whose life swung between welfare and riches. And yet she managed, despite the chaos she created, to instill in her daughter a love of stories. Kathi frequently kep her daughter home from school to watch such classics as the Godfather movies and everything by Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Despite the fact that there was not a book to be found in her household, Domenica developed a love of reading, which helped her believe that she could transcend this life of undying grudges, self-inflicted misfortune, and the crooked moral code that Kathi and her cohorts lived by. This is the story of the author's unconventional coming of age, a chronicle of a misfit '90s youth and the necessary and painful act of breaking away, and of overcoming her own addictions and demons in the process.

Tom Sizemore recounts his rise and fall in Hollywood, detailing his Detroit roots, co‑star relationships, twin‑boy fatherhood, and battle with methamphetamine addiction.

Oran Canfield’s raw memoir chronicles an unconventional childhood, a spiral into heroin addiction, and the desperate attempts of his family to pull him back from the brink.

Turner, Ted. Call Me Ted: A Personal History.

The American Disease is a classic study of the development of drug laws in the United States. Supporting the theory that Americans' attitudes toward drugs have followed a cyclic pattern of tolerance and restraint, author David F. Musto examines the relations between public outcry and the creation of prohibitive drug laws from the end of the Civil War to the present day. This third edition contains a new chapter and preface that cover the renewed debate on policy and drug legislation from the end of the Reagan administration to the present Clinton administration.

William Cope Moyers, son of journalist Bill Moyers, recounts his descent into crack cocaine addiction and his spiritually‑driven rehabilitation, demonstrating how personal transformation can influence national addiction policy.