There’s a particular kind of transformation that happens quietly, not in big declarations or dramatic scenes, but in the smaller moments—choosing not to respond in anger, recognizing an old fear before it controls you, realizing you don’t have to keep repeating the story you were handed. Woody Giessmann A Life of Recovery is filled with these moments. While on the surface, it is a memoir about addiction and healing, it also functions as something deeper: an exploration of how to re-parent yourself when the original roadmap was broken.
Giessmann writes about his upbringing with the careful precision of someone who has done the long work of untangling where things went wrong. His parents weren’t monsters. They were, in many ways, just people doing the best they could with tools they never received. That truth doesn’t soften the impact of their emotional distance or the silence that pervaded their home, but it does allow for a more honest examination of the legacy they left behind.
When his older brother Brian took his own life at 19, it shattered whatever emotional stability had existed. Giessmann was still a teenager himself, barely able to name the grief he was carrying, let alone process it. His family did what many families do in the face of tragedy—they turned inward, avoided hard conversations, and tried to move on as though moving forward didn’t require first standing still.
This pattern of avoidance, of withholding, became the blueprint for how Giessmann would relate to the world. Feelings were tucked away. Needs were minimized. And eventually, substances filled in the gaps that healthy communication never could.
It’s a familiar cycle to many. When a child doesn’t receive the emotional nurturing they need, they often grow up believing they don’t deserve it. And when that child becomes an adult, the absence doesn’t just disappear. It morphs. It shows up in relationships, in addiction, in self-sabotage, in the belief that care must be earned rather than freely given.
What makes A Life of Recovery compelling is the way Giessmann slowly learns to meet his own needs without shame. Through therapy, music, relapse and repair, he begins to rewire the inner voice that once told him to stay quiet, stay small, and stay numb.
And in doing so, he starts to parent himself, not with punishment, but with compassion. He learns to recognise the emotional needs that went unacknowledged in childhood—comfort, safety, permission to be vulnerable—and begins to offer them to himself. This is not portrayed as a perfect process. It’s messy, full of backslides and doubts. But it’s real. And it’s powerful.
There’s a scene where Giessmann, after years of sobriety and professional success, finds himself facing a medical crisis—a ruptured brain aneurysm. The recovery process is long and painful and, in many ways, echoes his earlier emotional work. He has to relearn how to speak, how to move, how to trust his own mind. And just like with emotional healing, there are no shortcuts.
This is where the notion of taking care of yourself gets stronger. He uses music as medicine, not as a performance. He finds peace in rhythm, creativity, and making things. These are not luxuries for him. They are tools that are needed to stay alive. He knows that healing isn’t about getting rid of the pain. It’s about figuring out how to deal with it and how to handle it gently instead of having it control you.
This fits in with a larger societal conversation about mending across generations. A plethora of people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are starting to realise how emotionally lacking their childhoods were. They’re starting to understand that taking care of someone’s body isn’t the same as seeing their feelings. And they’re asking hard questions like, “What do I do with the anger I wasn’t allowed to feel?” How can I raise my kids differently when I don’t even know how to take care of myself?
Giessmann doesn’t offer neat answers, but he offers presence. He shows what it looks like to be in that process with honesty. He doesn’t demonize his parents, but he doesn’t excuse them either. He holds the past with both hands, acknowledging the damage and the love that existed side by side.
His work with families reflects this approach. As an interventionist and counsellor, he gently invites people to look at their roles within a family system. Not to assign blame but to understand the patterns they’re participating in. He encourages people to build new scripts—not just for the person struggling with addiction, but for everyone in the household.
This is where the idea of re-parenting becomes social as well as personal. Healing, in Giessmann’s view, doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in the community. In families willing to tell the truth. In people willing to sit with discomfort without rushing to fix it. In shared efforts to break cycles and offer younger generations something different.
There’s a quiet beauty in the way Giessmann talks about parenting—not just as a father, but as someone who had to become the parent he needed. He doesn’t present it as a triumph. It’s more like a rhythm, a practice. Some days, it feels strong. Some days, it falters. But he keeps returning to it because he knows what the absence feels like.
A Life of Recovery is a book about addiction. But more than that, it’s a book about becoming the person your younger self needed. It’s about giving yourself permission to care deeply, to rest, to grieve, to begin again. It’s about learning how to say no to shame and yes to softness.
And in that way, it isn’t just a recovery story. It’s a guide for anyone learning how to love themselves for the first time—not with perfection, but with patience.