Inspiration appears in many forms, but for me most often if appears from the pages of books. I seek the truth about addiction and recovery.

My truth changes and evolves as I read more, learn more, and open my mind and heart to the stories of survival. These writers have made their way through the perils of addiction to find recovery. They may be the ones afflicted with addiction, or the family and friends watching, suffering and trying to help.

There are some authors whose words have had a lasting impact on me, shifting the way I view the recovery process. As I read each of their stories, I learned something new along the way. I’d like to share some of their words with you.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford, author of Moments of Clarity, actor, attorney and activist

There was an enormous relief in the surrender. I remember feeling that something changed, something shifted. I had tried many, many times to get sober, so I didn’t completely trust this. But there was something deep down inside me, just a glimmer, where something shifted. I didn’t understand it, I just had some awareness of it and how profound it was. God, or whatever you want to call it, had given me a glimmer of hope. So I knew intuitively there was something different going on, just a sliver of understanding, something so deep that it was undeniable, and it was totally different from anything that I’d ever experienced before. Just a glimmer. Just a taste.

Kristina Wandzilak, author of The Lost Years, interventionist, and presenter

I am going to die by myself and no one is going to notice that I am gone. I could disappear from the face of the earth and no one would know. I never saw this coming. In that place between here and the afterlife, when the anger falls away, I realize how alone I am and how much of life I have missed.

I am twenty-one years old and I had planned on being so much more. I wanted to graduate from high school and go to college on a swimming scholarship. I wanted to study psychology, write a book, find a life, and be happy. I wanted to make my parents proud. I wanted to be someone and make a real difference in the world. I wanted to have an extraordinary life.

It was then that reality hit me. For the first time in my life it became clear to me that I had done this to myself and that there was no one coming to save me or take care of me. There was no one coming to bring me home. I had to live for me, stay sober for me, and make the choice to save my own life. I had to make an unconditional decision to change myself, no matter what.

Constance Curry, mother of Kristina Wandzilak and author of  The Lost Years

All the way home I prayed that my daughter would stay in treatment. I did not want to go back to that place of fearing the future. What a waste of time, I’d tell myself. With the Serenity Prayer on my lips, I’d say, “Turn her over, turn her over to God.”

What I have learned over all these years is that it is not the adversity itself, but how I handled it that had come to define me life. I have tried to face our issues, understand and accept my part, forgive myself, and help my children move on. Our recovery has been a process, and we have all grown, changed and healed. I am hopeful that our story will inspire others to take heart and know that transformation can be theirs as well.

David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy, journalist, editor, and was on Time Magazine’s list of the World’s Most Influential People in 2009.

I agree wholeheartedly with the foremost recommendation of every rational antidrug campaign:  talk to your kids early and often about drugs. Otherwise you’re leaving it to someone else to instruct them.

More than anything else, parents want to know at what point a child is not longer experimenting, no longer a typical teenager, no longer going through a phase or a rite of passage.  Since it’s unanswerable, I have concluded that I would err on the side of caution and intervene earlier rather than later – not waiting until  a child is wantonly endangering himself or others.

I have learned a few other things. Rehab isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have.  Medications may help some addicts, but they cannot be expected to replace rehab and ongoing recovery work.  I would not in any way help someone using drugs to do anything other than return to rehab.

Why does it help to read others’ stories? It is not only that misery loves company, because (I learned) misery is too self-absorbed to want much company. Others’ experiences did help with my emotional struggle…

Libby Cataldi, author of Stay Close and educator

Today’s Promise to consider for all of us who love addicts:

I will acknowledge the addiction and allow myself to get help from others. I must give myself the gift of learning from other’s pain. I am not alone.

I will be present for my non-addicted child. He deserves my best. I will listen to him today: I will listen to his concerns, hopes and joys. I will let him know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how important he is to me and how much he is loved.

Just as the addict has to learn about his addiction, so do I. I’ll learn in Al-Anon; I’ll read books and talk with professionals. I’ll learn so that I can better help my loved one and myself.

There are some questions that have no answers. There are some ambiguities with which we must live. Maybe I could have done something differently to alter the course of this disease, but I’ll never know for sure. My son is addicted and I will learn how to stay close to him. I will accept that sometimes there are no answers.

I will remain humble in the face of addiction. I recognize that I am powerless to change my addicted love one: I am powerless to change anyone. But I will stay close.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis, journalist and author of America Anonymous

In 2007, the economic cost from alcohol and drug abuse alone was estimated to be $534 billion.  But as Joseph Califano Jr. makes clear in his book High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It, the real cost of substance abuse is practically incalculable: “What funds terrorism, spawns crime, drives up health care costs, breaks up families, spreads AIDS, promotes unwanted teen pregnancy, and frustrates so many efforts to eliminate poverty?”  The answer, he correctly points out, is “substance abuse and addiction.”

In essence, we’ve created a culture that supports and encourages addiction while at the same time shames, ridicules, and criminalizes those of us afflicted with it.  As writer and addiction psychologist Stanton Peele once said, “Addiction is not, as we like to think, an aberration from our way of life. Addiction is our way of life.”

Nic Sheff, author of Tweak

As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are – what others say is irrelevant.

And though I have done many shameful things, I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am because I know who I am. I have tried to rip myself open and expose everything inside – accepting my weaknesses and strengths – not trying to be anyone else. ‘Cause that never works, does it?  So my challenge is to be authentic. And I believe I am today. I believe I am.

Please share in the comments any of the great authors who have inspired you and impacted your life.