How I Got Sober: 10 Alcoholics and Addicts Tell Their Personal Stories: From the AfterParty Archives

My pattern of sexual compulsivity was fueled by alcohol. I didn’t know what to do but take a therapist’s suggestion: rehab. A bit extreme, I thought, but okay, why not? It’s not like I had anything else to do with my time but sit around Starbucks pretending to write and wanting to die.

So begins Melissa Petro’s first steps into a recovery, a journey made by every alcoholic or addict who’s found his or her way to recovery. In How I Got Sober: 10 Alcoholics and Addicts Tell Their Personal Stories, Petro and nine other contributors walk readers through the painful, stressful and occasionally hilarious ways they did it. Whether it started with a decision to go on the South Beach Diet (followed by a realization that quitting sugar might be okay but giving up alcohol was out of the question) or a botched bank robbery, the stories are as unique as the drug combinations some of the contributors came up with. Made up of essays culled from the leading addiction and recovery site AfterPartyMagazine, How I Got Sober shows how people without a hope of changing their lives somehow managed to; if it worked for them, readers may find themselves thinking, it can work for anyone.