We are great fans of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)  to gain significant help  with cravings and other issues around addictions, as well as depression, anxiety, anger and other emotional issues.
 

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, by David D. Burns

The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other "black holes" of depression can be cured without drugs! In Feeling Good, eminent psychiatrist, David D. Burns, M.D., outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life.

  
   

The Feeling Good Handbook, by David D. Burns

Filled with charts, quizzes, weekly self-assessment tests, and a daily mood log, The Feeling Good Handbook actively engages its readers in their own recovery. With a new section on the latest prescription drugs for treating depression and anxiety disorders, The Feeling Good Handbook is an indispensable guide to help change thinking, control mood swings, deal with disasters, and feel better about yourself and those around you.

 
   

Intimate Connections, by David D. Burns

You can find a loving partner. In this breakthrough book, Dr. David Burns, author of the bestselling Feeling Good, applies the proven principles of Cognitive Therapy to eliminating the negative thinking and low self-esteem that cause loneliness and shyness. With sensible and sensitive advice, case histories, and revealing exercises, this step-by-step program shows you how to pinpoint and rid yourself of attitudes that keep you apart from others, master the techniques that make you feel and look more attractive, deal with people who give you the runaround, resist romantic temptations not in your best interest, release inhibition stop conquer performance anxiety and enhance sexual pleasure, and develop fulfilling relationships . . . and more.
   

10 Days to Great Self-Esteem, by David D. Burns

In Ten Days to Self-esteem, Dr. David Burns presents innovative, clear, and compassionate methods that will help you identify the causes of your mood slumps and develop a more positive outlook on life. You will learn that

You FEEL the way you THINK: Negative feelings like guilt, anger, and depression do not result from the bad things that happen to you, but from the way you think about these events. This simple but revolutionary idea can change your life!  You can CHANGE the way you FEEL: You will discover why you get depressed and learn how to brighten your outlook when you're in a slump.

You can ENJOY greater happiness, productivity, and intimacy—without drugs or lengthy therapy.
   
When Panic Attacks, by David D. Burns, M.D.

One in four Americans has unhealthy anxiety--that's over 73 million people. What have we turned to? Pills. Have they helped? The numbers say no. David Burns, M.D., knows what nobody else does: traditional therapy and drugs don't cure anxiety. But revolutionary new cognitive behavior therapies do, and Burns has developed clinically proven techniques. The road to a cure begins with discovering the stories we tell ourselves that make us worry--"If I'm late for the meeting I'll be fired and never find another job

The good news is that the techniques in his Anxiety Toolkit take 60 seconds to work. This is an indispensable guide for anyone who's spent sleepless nights imagining a workplace disaster, dreading a plane trip or public speaking engagement, or fretting about the safety of a loved one.

   
Rapid Relief From Emotional Distress,  by Gary Emery

Yes, you can change your life . . . now!

If you're depressed, lonely, guilty, anxious, or otherwise emotionally ill, you don't have to be. The first step is to realize that you do have power over the way you feel. The second step is to master the simple, no-nonsense, five-minute strategies in this uniquely helpful and ground-breaking book.

Rapid Cognitive Therapy has been tested and proven effective. It is based on the ACT Formula: Accept your current reality. Choose to create what you want in your life. Take action to create it.
 
   

A (New) Guide to Rational Living,  by Albert Ellis

Powerful.  This book is the first book the great psychologist Albert Ellis wrote on Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy ( REBT - later known as 'cognitive therapy'). I also think it is one of the best. REBT is built on the idea that our thoughts cause our emotions and influence our behaviors. Ellis believes that people can change their emotions as well as their behaviors by disputing their irrational thoughts with facts and reason. In this book he goes through what he believes are the top 10 irrational ideas that cause most people to experience unpleasant emotions needlessly. The tone is direct as well as clear, free of psychobabble, and you never doubt that you are being addressed by one of the great psychological minds of the 20th century. Beware, there are multiple editions of this book. To get the latest edition with the most content make sure you have the 3rd 1975 printing (august). It should have
23 chapters. Earlier editions do not.
   
How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything; Yes, Anything! by Albert Ellis

Dr. Ellis argues that not only are anger, anxiety and depression unnecessary, they are unethical--for when one allows emotional disturbances, he or she is being unfair and unjust to his/herself
   

Guide to Personal Happiness, by Albert Ellis

This is one of Ellis' best books on REBT. REBT is all about removing the blocks to happiness and this little gem of a book provides us with very specific ways to do exactly that. The book is unique among other self-help books in that it can actually help people and doesn't just give a 300 page 'pep talk', that in the end amounts to nothing more than a warm bath--you feel better for a couple hours. It is also unique in that it deals with our blocks to happiness--our irrational/self-defeating thinking--in a scientific way. Ellis and Becker devote a chapter each to cognitive, emotive, and behavioral, techniques to rip up our self-defeating thinking. These three chapters alone are worth the price of the book and can be used for a lifetime.

Now, if REBT is just about removing the blocks to happiness and not about finding happiness per say why the title? One, removing our irrational thinking alone brings a serenity of mind that is equivalent to happiness in my book. And two, the initial chapters of the book and the last chapter deal with choosing a philosophy of happiness. The appendix is also useful as it provides a list of activities that almost anyone can experiment with.

   

When AA Doesn't Work For You:  Rational Steps to Quitting Alcohol, by Albert Ellis

The first book that applies the insights of rational-emotive therapy to the recovery from problem drinking.

   
 
Enchiridion And Selections from the Discourses of Epictetus,  by Epictetus, George Long (Translator)

Many thanks to John Z. for this suggestion.  REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) draws on the works of the Stoic philosophers, among others.  For those academically inclined and interested in the historical foundations of SRC,  this is a good start. 
   

 

Language in Thought and Action,  by S.I. Hayakawa

Tom S. sez:  Thanks for doing this work. We need all the resources we can get. For me, there were two books that were important to me. "Language In Though and Action" by S. I. Hayakawa (yep, "Sleepy Sam - former US Senator and university prez). He was an instrumental part of the General Semantics movement and wrote the first edition in the late 1930s.

General Semantics is another of the important foundations of CBT-REBT (Cognitive Behavior and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy), and we feel can be a very important aid in recovery from addictions and in dealing with other life-problems.
   
MORE TITLES BY ALBERT ELLIS