The common security options to avoid this horror scenario are a secondary email and a security question that can be used to recover a Google account. Google users from the United States have another option at their disposal which has been added recently to Google: The ability to recover an account password by a SMS that is send to a cell phone.

The option is currently only visible to US visitors. The Googlesystem blog suggested to use a US proxy server so that the option would become visible to users from other countries as well. I personally would not be using a proxy server to log into important web account. The possibility is there however and you can check out their blog post for some pointers. It is apparently possible to select another country from the list which makes it strange why they are not enabling the option for all users.

Users from the US or those using a US based proxy can open the Google Accounts page to enter a cell phone number as an additional method of restoring a Google account. It is likely that Google will roll out the feature soon for other countries as well.