Though Bill Clegg has written that “the story of ruin is just simply more captivating, especially if the fall is swift and from any height,” these memoirs pull us in with stories of resilience and recovery.  Some of these former addicts write of substituting for one toxic crutch with a less destructive one, like sex or religion; others write of overcoming the need for crutches altogether.  Even so, when author Steven Martin (whose book "Opium Fiend" was included in yesterday's addiction roundup) was asked by The New Yorker if he missed the drug, he confessed, “Every minute of every day.”

"Lit" by Mary Karr

Named one of the top ten books of 2009 by the New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani, this gravelly-voiced and often funny sequel to the coming-of-age memoir “The Liar’s Club” is an honest, grown-up book about honest, grown-up alcoholism.  Mary Karr’s Texan mother was a drunk, so was her father; Karr -- a poet -- didn’t descend into her own alcohol abuse until she was up to her ears in mothering and marriage. But this book is about recovery, not addiction, and a leaning toward Roman Catholicism that introduced her to two stellar models for autobiography, Saint Augustine and Thomas Merton.  “What undergirds Lit is not, in fact, the alcoholism that paralyzed Karr for so many years…but the journey to faith that her alcoholism catalyzed,” according to The Fix.

"Ninety Days:  A Memoir of Recovery" by Bill Clegg

This is Clegg’s portrait of recovery, beginning with the goal of just ninety clean, sober days.   The wunderkind literary agent chronicles his return to New York City -- treacherous territory for a recovering addict, with a bar on nearly every corner and a culture hinged upon working and playing hard -- the endless, drab rehab meetings, his friendships with new but loyal allies, and a harrowing relapse on the eighty-seventh day, when he succumbs to temptation and must begin again. “Relationships…are the real focus of Ninety Days, and as a result there is a tenderness at its heart.…” says Vogue.

"Dry" by Augusten Burroughs

From the author of "Running with Scissors," this second of several memoirs is the story of an alcoholic simply trying to outrun his next drink.  For Burroughs, a successful if restless young advertising copywriter, the race begins with an agreement -- dry out, or get fired -- so he chooses a gay clinic in Minnesota on the intutition “…a rehab hospital run by fags will be hip.”  His thirty-day experience was quite a different thing.  Dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey Jr. are dashed by the reality of fluorescent lights and paper hospital slippers. “[H]e’s an original, a step aslant of the cutting edge,” says Kirkus Reviews.

"Booky Wook 2:  This Time It’s Personal" by Russell Brand

Called a “devilishly hilarious roundup of his fame-era shenanigans” by Entertainment Weekly, Brand’s send-up recovery memoir chronicles the comedian’s pact with the devil:  trading crack and heroin addiction for sex addiction, a lot of sex addiction.   Drug-free but still scandalous, the star writes of raucous tours, chat show shenanigans, and tabloid scandals, glancing at his navel every once in a while to ponder the consequences of his immense popularity.