Publications
From Escape to Meaning
From a Scottish Childhood and Addiction to Recovery and Becoming a Psychotherapist
A deeply personal memoir about childhood, addiction, homelessness, recovery and the long journey towards becoming a counsellor and psychotherapist. John Graham reflects on the experiences that shaped him, the years when alcohol became an escape, and the gradual process of rebuilding a life with greater meaning, connection and purpose.
Why We Escape
Understanding Addiction, Shame, Trauma and the Search for Relief
A compassionate exploration of why people turn to alcohol, drugs and compulsive behaviours when life becomes painful or overwhelming. Drawing on psychology, recovery and lived experience, the book looks beneath the behaviour to the shame, trauma, emotional pain and search for relief that can lie underneath addiction.
The Parts Within Us
A Gentle Introduction to IFS-Informed Therapy
An accessible introduction to the idea that we all have different parts within us — parts that protect, criticise, avoid, achieve, numb, fear and long to be understood. Using an IFS-informed approach, this book helps readers become more curious about their inner world and develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves.
Learning to Sit Beside
Reflections on Recovery, Counselling, and Becoming a Therapist
A reflective journey through recovery, counselling training and the experience of learning how to sit alongside another person’s pain without trying to fix or control it. John Graham shares lessons from lived experience, therapeutic work and personal growth, exploring what it means to become a therapist while remaining fully human.
The Relationships We Repeat
Attachment, Addiction, and the Search for Love
A thoughtful exploration of the relationship patterns we carry into adult life and how attachment, addiction, fear of abandonment, emotional distance and the need for connection can become intertwined. The book offers a compassionate way of understanding why we repeat certain patterns — and how safer, healthier relationships can gradually become possible.
Small Practices for Deep Healing
Gentle Tools for Body, Mind, Parts, Relationships and Recovery
A practical collection of gentle therapeutic tools for everyday healing and self-reflection. Drawing on approaches including mindfulness, nervous-system regulation, IFS-informed work, EMDR-informed exercises, hypnotherapy and relationship awareness, the book is designed to help readers build small, sustainable practices that support deeper emotional change.
The Light Within 12 Step Recovery Workbook
Twelve-Step-Inspired Reflections for Healing, Honesty and Connection
A practical and reflective workbook inspired by the Twelve Steps and written for people in recovery, sponsors, sponsees and therapists supporting addiction recovery. Grounded in Twelve-Step principles, it helps readers explore honesty, responsibility, relationships, resentments, spirituality and personal growth while turning the Steps into practical reflection and action.
Again and again, I have seen that people are more than their symptoms, more than their past, and more than the coping strategies they once needed to survive.
Healing is possible.
Recovery is possible.
A meaningful life is possible.