Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
by David Sheff
from Houghton Mifflin Co
Amazon Best of the Month, February 2008: From as early as grade school, the world seemed to be on Nic Sheff's string. Bright and athletic, he excelled in any setting and appeared destined for greatness. Yet as childhood exuberance faded into teenage angst, the precocious boy found himself going down a much different path. Seduced by the illicit world of drugs and alcohol, he quickly found himself caught in the clutches of addiction. Beautiful Boy is Nic's story, but from the perspective of his father, David. Achingly honest, it chronicles the betrayal, pain, and terrifying question marks that haunt the loved ones of an addict. Many respond to addiction with a painful oath of silence, but David Sheff opens up personal wounds to reinforce that it is a disease, and must be treated as such. Most importantly, his journey provides those in similar situations with a commodity that they can never lose: hope --Dave Callanan
Sheff s story is a first: a teenager s addiction from the parent s point of view a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope. Before meth, Sheff s son Nic was a varsity athlete, honor student, and award-winning journalist. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who stole money from his eight-year-old brother and lived on the streets. With haunting candor, Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs, the denial (by both child and parents), the three A.M. phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab, and, at last, the way past addiction. He shows us that, whatever an addict s fate, the rest of the family must care for each other too, lest they become addicted to addiction. Meth is the fastest-growing drug in the United States, as well as the most addictive and the most dangerous wreaking permanent brain damage faster than any other readily available drug. It has invaded every region and demographic in America. This book is the first that treats meth and its impact in depth. But it is not just about meth. Nic s addiction has wrought the same damage that any addiction will wreak. His story, and his father s, are those of any family that contains an addict and one in three American families does.
Hero of the Underground: A Memoir
by Jason Peter
from St. Martin's Press
I wasn’t afraid of death.
How could I be? I lived under death’s shadow every day. When you swallow eighty Vicodin, twenty sleeping pills, drink a bottle of vodka, and still survive, a certain sense of invulnerability stays with you. When you continually use drugs with the kind of reckless determination that I did, the limit to how much heroin or crack you can ingest is not defined in dollar amounts, but in the amounts your body can withstand without experiencing a seizure or respiratory failure. Yet at the end of every binge, every night of lining up six, seven, eight crack pipes and hitting them one after the other bam! bam! bam! every night of smoking and snorting bag after bag of heroin . . . after all of that, when you still wake up to see the same dirty sky over you as the night before, you start to think that instead of dying, maybe your punishment is to live---to be stuck in this purgatory of self-abuse and misery for an eternity. Sometimes you start to think that death would come as a blessed relief.
Toward the end, I found myself contemplating death again. Only this time I wasn’t going to leave it to chance. I was going to buy a gun, load the thing, place the barrel in my mouth, and blow my fucking brains out.
I sat on my parents’ sofa as I pondered this. All I needed was a gun.
And then all--
of my problems--
would be solved.
A Million Little Pieces
by James Frey
from Anchor
News from Doubleday & Anchor Books
The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn't matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.
It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished.
We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces. We are immediately taking the following actions:
*Customers should find the Author's Note and Publisher's Note in copies purchased from Amazon.com after April 15, 2006.
Note: The following editorial reviews were written before the recent revelations by James Frey and the publisher.
Amazon.com
The electrifying opening of James Frey's debut memoir, A Million Little Pieces, smash-cuts to the then 23-year-old author on a Chicago-bound plane "covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood." Wanted by authorities in three states, without ID or any money, his face mangled and missing four front teeth, Frey is on a steep descent from a dark marathon of drug abuse. His stunned family checks him into a famed Minnesota drug treatment center where a doctor promises "he will be dead within a few days" if he starts to use again, and where Frey spends two agonizing months of detox confronting "The Fury" head on:
I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can.
One of the more harrowing sections is when Frey submits to major dental surgery without the benefit of anesthesia or painkillers (he fights the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack). His fellow patients include a damaged crack addict with whom Frey wades into an ill-fated relationship, a federal judge, a former championship boxer, and a mobster (who, upon his release, throws a hilarious surf-and-turf bacchanal, complete with pay-per-view boxing). In the book's epilogue, when Frey ticks off a terse update on everyone, you can almost hear the Jim Carroll Band's brutal survivor's lament "People Who Died" kicking in on the soundtrack of the inevitable film adaptation.
The rage-fueled memoir is kept in check by Frey's cool, minimalist style. Like his steady mantra, "I am an Alcoholic and I am a drug Addict and I am a Criminal," Frey's use of repetition takes on a crisp, lyrical quality which lends itself to the surreal experience. The book could have benefited from being a bit leaner. Nearly 400 pages is a long time to spend under Frey's influence, and the stylistic acrobatics (no quotation marks, random capitalization, left-aligned text, wild paragraph breaks) may seem too self-conscious for some readers, but beyond the literary fireworks lurks a fierce debut. --Brad Thomas Parsons
“The most lacerating tale of drug addiction since William S. Burroughs’ Junky.” —The Boston Globe
“Again and again, the book delivers recollections that leave the reader winded and unsteady. James Frey’s staggering recovery memoir could well be seen as the final word on the topic.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A brutal, beautifully written memoir.”—The Denver Post
“Gripping . . . A great story . . . You can’t help but cheer his victory.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
At the age of twenty-three, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth had been knocked out. His nose was broken and there was a hole through his cheek. He had no idea where the plane was headed or what had happened over the preceding two weeks. He had been an alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three. When he checked into a treatment facility shortly thereafter, he was told he could either stop using or die before he reached twenty-four.
A Million Little Pieces is Frey's acclaimed account of his six weeks in rehab; fiercely honest and deeply affecting, it is one of the most graphic and immediate books ever to be written about addiction and recovery.
"James Frey has written the War and Peace of addiction. It lends new meaning to the word 'harrowing' and one sometimes shudders to read it. But deep down, beneath all the layers and the masks, there lives something unconquerable in Frey's hurt spirit... And the writing, the writing, the writing."
PAT CONROY
"A Million Little Pieces is as intense and perfectly detailed an account of a human quitting his drug and alcohol dependency as you are likely to read. And James Frey is horribly honest and funny in a young-guard Eggers and Wallace sort of way, but perhaps more contained and measured. He is unerring in his descent into a world where the characters need help in such extremely desperate ways. Read this immediately."
GUS VAN SANT
"A Million Little Pieces is this generation's most comprehensive book about addiction: a heartbreaking memoir defined by its youthful tone and poetic honesty. Beneath the brutality of James Frey's painful process of growing up, there are simple gestures of kindness that will reduce even the most jaded to tears. Very few books earn those tears—this one does. It will have you sobbing, laughing, angry, frustrated, and most importantly, hopeful. A Million Little Pieces is inspirational and essential. A remarkable performance."
BRET EASTON ELLIS
The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of his Life--His Own
by David Carr
from Simon & Schuster
Do we remember only the stories we can live with?
The ones that make us look good in the rearview mirror? In The Night of the Gun, David Carr redefines memoir with the revelatory story of his years as an addict and chronicles his journey from crack-house regular to regular columnist for The New York Times. Built on sixty videotaped interviews, legal and medical records, and three years of reporting, The Night of the Gun is a ferocious tale that uses the tools of journalism to fact-check the past. Carr's investigation of his own history reveals that his odyssey through addiction, recovery, cancer, and life as a single parent was far more harrowing -- and, in the end, more miraculous -- than he allowed himself to remember. Over the course of the book, he digs his way through a past that continues to evolve as he reports it.
That long-ago night he was so out of his mind that his best friend had to pull a gun on him to make him go away? A visit to the friend twenty years later reveals that Carr was pointing the gun.
His lucrative side business as a cocaine dealer? Not all that lucrative, as it turned out, and filled with peril.
His belief that after his twins were born, he quickly sobered up to become a parent? Nice story, if he could prove it.
The notion that he was an easy choice as a custodial parent once he finally was sober? His lawyer pulls out the old file and gently explains it was a little more complicated than that.
In one sense, the story of The Night of the Gun is a common one -- a white-boy misdemeanant lands in a ditch and is restored to sanity through the love of his family, a God of his understanding, and a support group that will go unnamed. But when the whole truth is told, it does not end there. After fourteen years -- or was it thirteen? -- Carr tried an experiment in social drinking. Double jeopardy turned out to be a game he did not play well. As a reporter and columnist at the nation's best newspaper, he prospered, but gained no more adeptness at mood-altering substances. He set out to become a nice suburban alcoholic and succeeded all too well, including two more arrests, one that included a night in jail wearing a tuxedo.
Ferocious and eloquent, courageous and bitingly funny, The Night of the Gun unravels the ways memory helps us not only create our lives, but survive them.
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works
by Evelyn Tribole
from St. Martin's Griffin
Shrink Yourself: Break Free from Emotional Eating Forever
by Roger Gould
from Wiley
Emotional eating is by far the most common cause of weight gain. As you'll learn in Shrink Yourself, all the diets, exercise regimens, and surgical procedures in the world will not free you from this vicious cycle. Why? Because they don't address your reasons for overeating.
Shrink Yourself, a supportive, unique, and ground-breaking guide written by a world-renowned therapist who has helped thousands of people lose weight and keep it off, gets to the heart of the problem. Shrink Yourself gives you the equivalent of eight expensive sessions with the best weight-loss therapist in the world for the price of a single book.
Yo-yo dieting is an endless cycle. You diet and lose weight. Then you eat "comfort food" - that piece of cake, huge bowl of ice cream, or enormous bag of potato chips you devour to smother your feelings of fear, anxiety, stress, anger, boredom, loneliness, frustration, or so many other feelings. The comfort doesn't last long. Soon you feel guilty for breaking your diet, so you displace the guilt with another helping. Before long, you're unpacking your fat clothes again and berating yourself for your lack of willpower. Then, warily, you contemplate the next diet.
With Shrink Yourself, renowned psychiatrist and emotional eating expert Dr. Roger Gould offers the first step-by-step analysis of the connection between eating and emotion. Dr. Gould explains why the connection is so powerful and shows you how to break the emotional eating cycle, shed all your excess pounds, and keep them off for good. Based on Dr. Gould's unique method and his work involving more than twenty thousand people, this revolutionary eight-session program reveals that your uncontrollable hunger is connected to feelings of powerlessness in your life. You'll discover the five layers of powerlessness and you'll learn how to recognize and cope with each of them by:
- Conquering the feeling phobia
- Waking up from the food trance
- Challenging your self-doubts
- Defeating your defeatism
- Creating real safety
- Dealing positively with anger
- And more
The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery
by Chris Prentiss
from Power Press
The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure contains the incredible three-step program to total recovery that is the basis of the miraculous success of the Passages Addiction Cure Center in Malibu, California, the world's most successful substance abuse treatment center. While traditional treatments have a relapse rate as high as 80% or 90%, the world-famous Passages has a cure rate of 84.4%. This revolutionary book shows how you or a loved one can follow the same successful program used at Passages with the help of health professionals right where you live. You'll learn the three steps to permanent sobriety, the four causes of dependency, and how to create your own personalized treatment program—one that gets to the real, underlying causes of dependency. The book also shows how your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs are key factors in your recovery and how you can stimulate your body's self-healing potential to be forever free of dependency. The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure will show you how to end relapse, end your craving, and end your suffering.
Breaking Free from Emotional Eating
by Geneen Roth
from Plume
Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story
by Brian Welch
from HarperOne
The incredible story of a controversial rock star, his secret addiction to methamphetamines, and his miraculous salvation through Jesus Christ. Candid and inspiring, Save Me from Myself is a rock 'n' roll journey unlike any other.
Life Without Ed: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too
by Jenni Schaefer
from McGraw-Hill
A unique new approach to treating eating disorders
Eight million women in the United States suffer from anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. For these women, the road to recovery is a rocky one. Many succumb to their eating disorders. Life Without Ed offers hope to all those who suffer from these often deadly disorders. For years, author Jennifer Schaefer lived with both anorexia and bulimia. She credits her successful recovery to the technique she learned from her psychologist, Thom Rutledge.
This groundbreaking book illustrates Rutledge's technique. As in the author's case, readers are encouraged to think of an eating disorder as if it were a distinct being with a personality of its own. Further, they are encouraged to treat the disorder as a relationship rather than as a condition. Schaefer named her eating disorder Ed; her recovery involved "breaking up" with Ed
- Shares the points of view of both patient and therapist in this approach to treatment
- Helps people see the disease as a relationship from which they can distance themselves
- Techniques to defeat negative thoughts that plague eating disorder patients
Prescriptive, supportive, and inspirational, Life Without Ed shows readers how they too can overcome their eating disorders.
A unique new approach to treating eating disorders Eight million women in the United States suffer from anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. For these women, the road to recovery is a rocky one. Many succumb to their eating disorders. Life Without Ed offers hope to all those who suffer from these often deadly disorders. For years, author Jennifer Schaefer lived with both anorexia and bulimia. She credits her successful recovery to the technique she learned from her psychologist, Thom Rutledge. This groundbreaking book illustrates Rutledge's technique. As in the author's case, readers are encouraged to think of an eating disorder as if it were a distinct being with a personality of its own. Further, they are encouraged to treat the disorder as a relationship rather than as a condition. Schaefer named her eating disorder Ed; her recovery involved ""breaking up"" with Ed Shares the points of view of both patient and therapist in this approach to treatment Helps people see the disease as a relationship from which they can distance themselves Techniques to defeat negative thoughts that plague eating disorder patients Prescriptive, supportive, and inspirational, Life Without Ed shows readers how they too can overcome their eating disorders.
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