For fans of The Glass Castle, What My Bones Know, and Nobody’s Girl, a triumphant debut memoir about one woman’s reckoning with childhood abuse and family addiction.

Raised in an affluent Washington DC suburb, Laura Sharon grows up in a home where appearances matter more than safety, alcohol eclipses care, and emotional needs go unmet. From an early age, she learns to perform, disappear, and take responsibility for others, even as her own inner world fractures under the weight of neglect, body shame, and childhood trauma and addiction.

In her twenties, Sharon gets sober, believing recovery will bring relief. Instead, it opens the floodgates. Panic attacks, night terrors, grief, and buried memories surface, forcing her to confront a painful truth: Stopping the use of substances is only the beginning. Recovery requires her to reckon with what she lost, what she endured, and who she had to become to survive.

With honesty, psychological precision, and emotional courage, Sharon traces her journey through addiction, early recovery, and the slow, nonlinear process of reclaiming herself. Lasting recovery is not simple or easy. I Thought I Was Going to Die and Then I Didn’t is a portrait of resilience—one that will speak to anyone who has lived through trauma and wondered what it will take to save themselves.