This is the fourth in a series of "Voices of" books, edited by the Healing Project, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people with life-threatening diseases, and "written by people like you." Through these first-person accounts, "Voices of Alcoholism" describes living with the bottle —- and the often challenging steps toward recovery.

[From article Self-help books focus on recovery from alcoholism.]

William Pryor, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, was a heroin and then alcohol addict for twelve years in the sixties and seventies. He brushed death several times, but, against overwhelming odds, survived, and, in 1975, was one of the first patients at the first American-style addiction treatment centre in Europe. His experiences - and subsequent transformation to non-addiction - have given him a unique insight into the world of hard drugs and addiction.

This isn't just one girl's story of sneaking drinks in junior high, creeping out for night-long keg parties in high school and binge-drinking weeknights and weekends through college—it's also a valuable cautionary tale. At 24 (her present age), Zailckas gave up drinking after a decade of getting drunk, having blackouts and experiencing brushes with comas, date rape and suicide. She weaves disturbing statistics (from Harvard School of Public Heath studies and elsewhere) into her memoir: most girls will have their first drink by age 12, and will have the experience of being drunk by 14; teenage girls drink as much as their male peers, but their bodies process it badly...

William Cope Moyers has come a long, long way. In 1994, he lay on the floor of an Atlanta crack house. From that lowly, drug-hazed night, Moyers went on to become an executive at the Hazelden Foundation and travels far and wide to talk about addiction and treatment. Broken tells the story of what happened between then and now—from growing up the privileged son of Bill Moyers to his descent into alcoholism and drug addiction, his numerous stabs at getting clean, his many relapses, and how he managed to survive.

A Million Little Pieces is about my memories of my time in a drug and alcohol treatment center. As has been accurately revealed by two journalists at an Internet Web site, and subsequently acknowledged by me, during the process of writing the book, I embellished many details about my past experiences, and altered others in order to serve what I felt was the greater purpose of the book. [From author statement.]

Although the title of this book makes it sound like it might be a movie-of-the-week, true-confessions type of tearjerker, it is not. In one sense, it's a very straightforward account of a man's self-destructive tendencies and his battle to find some way to live with them. But look more closely, and you will find the deeply affecting, often frightening story of a man who was doomed almost from the day he was born.

From as early as grade school, the world seemed to be on Nic Sheff's string. Bright and athletic, he excelled in any setting and appeared destined for greatness. Yet as childhood exuberance faded into teenage angst, the precocious boy found himself going down a much different path. Seduced by the illicit world of drugs and alcohol, he quickly found himself caught in the clutches of addiction. Beautiful Boy is Nic's story, but from the perspective of his father, David.

Also see article: Beautiful Boy author and son detail addiction in family.