Firebird Book Awards Winner First Place - Addiction & Recovery, April 2024.
In her powerful debut book, Kristy Henderson recounts the experience of living two parallel lives: an average, normal life on the exterior, and the secret life she kept in the shadows, battling with a forceful addiction to alcohol few people could see.
Recovering Out Loud is a turbulent memoir about the birthplace of addiction and the self-hate and insecurities that bloomed in its wake. Through her stories and research, Henderson dissects the role alcohol played in her slow undoing and the all-consuming obsession it became. She struggled in silence for years, unable to find help through traditional programs, told "keep drinking, kid" when she went to her first AA meeting. She started to believe there was nowhere to turn.
How do you ask for help when no one around you knows you are struggling?
The only way Henderson was getting out alive required her to examine all ways alcohol served her life. To numb the pain, the anxiety, to calm the irrational mind. She used her passion for learning to deconstruct everything she believed in order to make a lasting change. Her journey inspires hope that people addicted to alcohol truly can recover, whether they hit rock bottom or not. They just need to find their way.