Wounded Healing by Jorja Jamison

Jorja Jamison

Author

Wounded Healing

Imagine landing your dream job as an addiction psychologist at the nation’s most famous alcohol and drug treatment facility. You’ve spent 8 grueling years earning your Master’s and Doctorate degrees in a program you were never supposed to get into, and you’ve been identified as a rising star in the field. At every turn, leaders and clients are praising your abilities. There’s just one catch: you have been doing all this while secretly battling your own addiction. For years you lead a painful double life, presenting to the world as a competent clinician, but privately you are spiraling into hell. Then one day everything falls apart and you must learn what it truly means to heal from an addiction. Wounded Healing: the Art and Soul of Surthriving weaves Dr. Jamison’s personal memoir with expert guidance for anyone who has struggled with substance use or mental health issues.

Reviews

Licensed psychologist Jamison digs into her personal struggle with substance abuse in this candid, inspiring memoir. “This is the story of a woman whose entire personality was shame-based, and whose childhood wounds created an adult who was driven by perfection and invulnerability” she writes, setting the stage for a brutally honest, often hard to read story covering her ongoing battles with weight, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Jamison acknowledges that she is “one of the lucky ones,” and her dual perspective as counselor and person with a substance use disorder lends authority to this vulnerable debut—a sensitive, transparent journey of pain, healing, and, eventually, peace.

Jamison recounts her secret life as an addict, opening up about the hidden shame, attempted suicides, and ultimately successful recovery she experienced. From writing her own prescriptions to stealing pills from the medicine cabinets of friends and family, this harrowing story of one survivor's private struggle with substance abuse probes the steps it takes to truly recover from addiction—and the rippling effect substance abuse has not only on addicts, but on their loved ones as well. Jamison shies away from nothing, chronicling her life’s precarious balance as she gains accolades in her career all while harboring dark secrets: “I was achieving great things in my life, but underneath I was hiding a seething boil of inescapable turmoil,” she writes.

This memoir is unique in its exploration of both the wounded and the healed side of trauma and addiction, and readers struggling with similar issues will find Jamison’s emotive writing spellbinding. More than just a chronicle of the devastation wrought by addiction, Jamison’s story is ultimately an homage to her triumph over years of mental anguish and pain—so much so, she coins her own phrase, “surthriving,” to describe her transformation from “mere survival to one of truly thriving, in all the best ways.”

Takeaway: Vulnerable memoir of a psychologist’s triumph over substance abuse.

Comparable Titles: Laura Cathcart Robbins's Stash, Sarah Michaud's Co-Crazy.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A-

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