Download or read book Her Addiction An Empty Place at the Table written by Mary Sexson and published by . This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a poetry collection that will break your heart, but also make you grateful you read it. Mary Sexson tells the story of her daughter's addiction(s) honestly, sometimes painfully, with grace and love. The first time I read the powerful and moving manuscript I sensed it could be a challenge for her to find a publisher. As the author of a book of poems about surviving abuse by a priest, however, I also had faith that some wise publisher would admire a poet who confronts difficult topics and stories like the one that Mary Sexson has the courage to tell about herself, her family, and their struggles. Sometimes she is patient, sometimes frustrated, impatient, exhausted, angry, but always she is honest. Remarkably, her love of, and loyalty to, her undependable daughter is everywhere evident. The most moving part of the story is her and her husband's having to raise their grandson, a toddler, while his mother, in her thirties, is in and out of treatment, somewhere in an alley looking for a fix, causing a traffic accident, or temporarily back home before relapsing again. Sexson makes it clear that for everyone in the family there is "a heavy toll to pay." At first, the grandson is unaware of what's going on, but eventually his grandmother observes him playing "The Dinosaur Game," with "a family /of triceratops," then realizes, "I buy him the dinosaurs / he configures / into the family he does not have." Later the little boy asks his grandmother a series of questions, including: "Why is [my] mommy not here?" On his bedside table, a "Big Ironman" stands, whose job is "to keep him safe / until her return." It's no surprise that the grandparents find it difficult to share this painful story with others, which makes the telling of so much truth in these eloquent poems noteworthy. "The price we all pay / for this level of intimacy is staggering," Sexson admits. "I ache for monotony...the comfort of it." In "Map of My Fears," she says: "Your addiction draws lines / on my face, deep and distinct." She becomes "tired of writing about [her] in my head." Finally, the grandparents start to "whisper" the story of their daughter's addiction, telling others the "facts / bare and ugly as they were." In the last poem, "The Words," Sexson reveals all that she would like to be able to tell her daughter on her 37th birthday. The last message is this: "Tell her / that you learn the truth about love / every time you are with her." The poet is too wise to tell us, directly, what that truth is-the poems in this outstanding collection deserving of a wide audience have already made us see and feel it. Mary Sexson's exquisite artistry makes forgetting her family story impossible. -Norbert Krapf, Former Indiana Poet Laureate
Download or read book Smacked written by Eilene Zimmerman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist pieces together the mysteries surrounding her ex-husband’s descent into drug addiction while trying to rebuild a life for her family, taking readers on an intimate journey into the world of white-collar drug abuse. “A rare combination of journalistic rigor, personal courage, and writerly grace.”—Bill Clegg, author of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man Something was wrong with Peter. Eilene Zimmerman noticed that her ex-husband looked thin, seemed distracted, and was frequently absent from activities with their children. She thought he looked sick and needed to see a doctor, and indeed, he told her he had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. Yet in many ways, Peter seemed to have it all: a beautiful house by the beach, expensive cars, and other luxuries that came with an affluent life. Eilene assumed his odd behavior was due to stress and overwork—he was a senior partner at a prominent law firm and had been working more than sixty hours a week for the last twenty years. Although they were divorced, Eilene and Peter had been partners and friends for decades, so when she and her children were unable to reach Peter for several days, Eilene went to his house to see if he was OK. So begins Smacked, a brilliant and moving memoir of Eilene’s shocking discovery, one that sets her on a journey to find out how a man she knew for nearly thirty years became a drug addict, hiding it so well that neither she nor anyone else in his life suspected what was happening. Eilene discovers that Peter led a secret life, one that started with pills and ended with opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamine. He was also addicted to work; the last call Peter ever made was to dial in to a conference call. Eilene is determined to learn all she can about Peter’s hidden life, and also about drug addiction among ambitious, high-achieving professionals like him. Through extensive research and interviews, she presents a picture of drug dependence today in that moneyed, upwardly mobile world. She also embarks on a journey to re-create her life in the wake of loss, both of the person—and the relationship—that profoundly defined the woman she had become.
Download or read book Pilgrim Bell written by Kaveh Akbar and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kaveh Akbar’s exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar’s second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body’s question, “what now shall I repair?” Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance—the infinite void of a loved one’s absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation—teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness. Richly crafted and generous, Pilgrim Bell’s linguistic rigor is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives—resonant, revelatory, and holy.
Download or read book All Fall Down written by Jennifer Weiner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Struggling with the demands of her job, distant husband, spoiled daughter and Alzheimer's patient father, Allison becomes addicted to painkillers and lands in rehab, where amid fellow inpatients she confronts incompatible recovery techniques, barely trained counselors and her own denial.
Download or read book Strong in the Broken Places written by Quentin Vennie and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quentin Vennie shouldn’t be alive―he has walked a path that many don’t live long enough to write about. Growing up in Baltimore, he was surrounded by nothing but dead ends. Statistics mapped out his future, and he grew hostile toward a world that viewed him with suspicion and disdain. He’s been shot at, sold drugs up and down the East Coast, lingered on the brink of incarceration, and stared down death more than once. Haunted by feelings of abandonment and resentment, he struggled with chronic anxiety and depression and battled a crippling prescription drug addiction. The day he contemplated taking his life was the day he rediscovered his purpose for living. Vennie’s survival depended upon his finding a new path, but he didn’t know where to turn―his doctor was concerned only with prescribing more medication. Vennie refused, and in a desperate attempt to save his own life, decided to pursue a journey of natural healing. After researching a few self-healing methods, he immediately bought a juicer from an all-night grocery store. He started juicing in the hopes that it would help him repair his body and clear his mind. He jumped headfirst into the world of wellness and started incorporating yoga and meditation into his life. This “wellness trinity” helped him cut back on and then quit the many medications he was on, overcome his addictions, and ultimately, transform his life while inspiring others to find their own unique path to wellness. Strong in the Broken Places is the harrowing story of Vennie’s life, the detours that almost ended it, and the inspiring turns that saved it. The odds were stacked against him, but he was able to defy expectations and claw his way out on his own terms. He is living proof that during our weakest moments, we have the power and ability to unlock unimaginable strength.
Download or read book I m Glad My Mom Died written by Jennette McCurdy and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir by American former actress and singer Jennette McCurdy about her career as a child actress and her difficult relationship with her abusive mother who died in 2013
Download or read book The Empty Room written by Lauren B. Davis and published by eBookIt.com. This book was released on 2013-05 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A raw and groundbreaking journey to the depths of addiction, from the author of Our Daily Bread, longlisted for the Giller Prize. Colleen Kerrigan wakes up sick and bruised, with no clear memory of the night before. It's Monday morning, and she is late for work again. She's shocked to see the near-empty vodka bottle on her kitchen counter. It was full at noon yesterday; surely she didn't drink that much last night? As she struggles out the door, she fights the urge to have a sip, just to take the edge off. But no, she's not going to drink today. But this is the day Colleen's demons come for her. A very bad day spirals into night as a series of flashbacks take the reader through Colleen's past--moments of friendship and loss, fragments of peace and possibility. The single constant is the bottle, always close by, Colleen's worst enemy and her only friend. In this unforgettable work, acclaimed novelist Lauren B. Davis has created as searing, raw and powerful a portrayal of the chaos and pain of alcoholism as we have encountered in fiction. Told with compassion, insight and an irresistible gallows humor, The Empty Room takes us to the depths of addiction, only to find a revelation at its heart: the importance and grace of one person reaching out to another.
Download or read book Prodependence written by Robert Weiss and published by Health Communications, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Prodependence," a new psychological term created by Robert Weiss to describe healthy interdependence in the modern world, turns this around. Rather that preaching detachment and distance over continued bonding and assistance, as so many therapists, self-help books, and 12-step groups currently do, prodependence celebrates the human need for and pursuit of intimate connection, viewing this as a positive force for change. Simply stated, prodependence occurs when attachment relationships are mutually beneficial--with one person's strengths filling in the weak points of the other, and vice versa. And this can occur even when an addiction is present
Download or read book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts written by Gabor Maté, MD and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “thought-provoking and powerful” study that reframes everything you’ve been taught about addiction and recovery—from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Myth of Normal (Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog). A world-renowned trauma expert combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction—its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery. Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with people with addiction on Vancouver’s skid row, this #1 international bestseller radically re-envisions a much misunderstood condition by taking a compassionate approach to substance abuse and addiction recovery. In the same vein as Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts traces the root causes of addiction to childhood trauma and examines the pervasiveness of addiction in society. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout—and perhaps underpins—our society. It is not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs and behaviors of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. Dr. Maté argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and how they perpetuate the War on Drugs. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own “high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.
Download or read book Addicted To You Jameson s Addiction written by Glenna Maynard and published by Glenna Maynard. This book was released on with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This time he's playing for keeps. Notorious bad boy of Rock n’ Roll Jameson Lewis is returning home to his roots after five years of touring and recording. There’s just one problem—Peyton Mathews. The girl he left behind. His one regret and favorite addiction. She's been under his skin since the day they met. No matter how hard he's tried she's one habit he can't shake. The moment he sees her again sparks fly and the love he thought he lost forever rekindles burning hotter than ever. Only Peyton wants nothing to do with him. He'll do anything to remind her he was her first kiss and intends on being her last.
Download or read book Murder Among Friends written by Candace Fleming and published by Anne Schwartz Books. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did two teenagers brutally murder an innocent child...and why? And how did their brilliant lawyer save them from the death penalty in 1920s Chicago? Written by a prolific master of narrative nonfiction, this is a compulsively readable true-crime story based on an event dubbed the "crime of the century." In 1924, eighteen-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision: they would commit the perfect crime by kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error: as they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket. Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case--how two wealthy, brilliant young men planned and committed what became known as the crime of the century, how they were caught, why they confessed, and how the renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow enabled them to avoid the death penalty. Following on the success of such books as The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh and The Family Romanov, this acclaimed nonfiction writer brings to heart-stopping life one of the most notorious crimes in our country's history.
Download or read book Getting Off written by Erica Garza and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Erica Garza has written a riveting, can’t-look-away memoir of a life lived hardcore…In an era when predatory male sexual behavior has finally become a topic of urgent national discourse…Getting Off makes for a wild, timely read” (Elle). A fixation on porn and orgasm, strings of failed relationships and serial hook-ups with strangers, inevitable blackouts to blunt the shame—these are not things we often hear women share publicly, and not with the candor, eloquence, and introspection Erica Garza brings to Getting Off. What sets this courageous and riveting account apart from your typical misery memoir is the absence of any precipitating trauma beyond the garden variety of hurt we’ve all had to endure in simply becoming a person—reckoning with family, learning to be social, integrating what it means to be sexual. Whatever tenor of violence or abuse Erica’s life took on through her behavior was of her own making, fueled by fear, guilt, self-loathing, self-pity, loneliness, and the hopelessness those feelings brought on as she runs from one side of the world to the other in an effort to break her habits—from East Los Angeles to Hawaii and Southeast Asia, through the brothels of Bangkok and the yoga studios of Bali to disappointing stabs at therapy and twelve-steps back home. In these remarkable pages, Garza draws an evocative, studied portrait of the anxiety that fuels her obsessions, as well as the exhilaration and hope she begins to feel when she suspects she might be free of them. Getting Off offers a brave and necessary voice to our evolving conversations about addiction and the impact that internet culture has had on us all—“a profoundly genuine, gripping story that any reader can appreciate” (Vice). “In reading Garza’s insight into her own experiences, we better understand ourselves” (The New York Times Book Review).
Download or read book Marriage Maps and Driven Destinies written by Mary Sexson and published by . This book was released on 2023-08-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Sexson and Lylanne Musselman connected quickly and became poetry sisters. This joint book leads the reader down two different paths the authors have walked. As you meander through the pages you will find tears and joy, fear and anticipation, life and death. This book leads you down a self-reflective arc where you will find hope in good times and bad. Despite having traveled very different paths, Mary Sexson and Lylanne Musselman remind us in Marriage Maps and Driven Destinies that the people we journey with profoundly impact our paths and purposes. The poets' talents for imagery and analogy place us in fast cars driving Indiana roads after curfew and sitting in waiting rooms reflecting on mortality-raw and relatable vignettes resonating of hardship, heartache, and tenderness. Poems illustrate how our choices when navigating threats, for better or worse, prepare us to survive and find joy in what might feel routine or mundane. Independence comes from boldly taking the wheel and learning when to stop and ask for directions. Sexson and Musselman's collection explores relationships that shape and bind us: those we cherish and those we must forgive. Liz Whiteacre Author of Hit the Ground and founder of Etchings Press From cancer to cars, love to longing, the collected poems of Marriage Maps and Driven Destinies remind us that wisdom, too, is a journey, not a destination. It is the journey of this book. Sexson's poems speak with a delicate but honest self-examination. Her husband's cancer diagnosis shapes some of her most revealing and insightful poems. Love, fear and grueling uncertainty bring home the ultimate truth of a long marriage. Musselman's robust voice takes us back to the fast cars and AM radio of smalltown Indiana. While they convey a sense of isolation and loneliness, her poems have a humor and humanity that meets life head on. "Not one to fear the dark", she travels the winding roads that ultimately bring her closest to home. Liz Hughes Wiley Poet, educator, and event planner. Wiley planned the memorable tribute to George Hitchcock, famous editor of the poetry journal Kayak
Download or read book The Gods of Addiction written by Chaplain Mitchell Green and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-09 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inspirational memoir shares one man's journey through addiction, recovery, and the eventual realization that God is his savior. Mitchell Green has been to hell and back. For more than thirty years, demonic forces intertwined within him, tearing his life apart, testing his sanity, and destroying every good thing he ever found, created, or was given. In his moving testimony, Green shares his inspiring life story of addiction and of the glorious heights to which a soul has the potential to rise even after its descent into darkness. In his candid portrayal of life before, during, and after addiction, Green recalls sitting in drug dens, his face sunken, skin ashen, eyes wild, and pumping cocaine into his system all while wondering where he would find the money for his next hit. Most of all, Green remembers running. But when he was charged with assault during a robbery, the running stopped at least for the next eleven years. As Green shares the challenging journey of his recovery, he describes the joyless process that it became until the voice of a loving God spoke to his suffering soul and revealed his true identity. The Gods of Addiction is an inspirational story about the power of the gods of addiction to destroy lives and the power of God to save them.
Download or read book Out of Reach written by Carrie Arcos and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found? A girl searches for her missing addict brother while confronting her own secrets in this darkly lyrical novel, a National Book Award Finalist. Rachel has always idolized her older brother Micah. He struggles with addiction, but she tells herself that he’s in control. And she almost believes it. Until the night that Micah doesn’t come home. Rachel’s terrified—and she can’t help but feel responsible. She should have listened when Micah tried to confide in her. And she only feels more guilt when she receives an anonymous note telling her that Micah is nearby and in danger. With nothing more to go on than hope and a slim lead, Rachel and Micah’s best friend, Tyler, begin the search. Along the way, Rachel will be forced to confront her own dark secrets, her growing attraction to Tyler…and the possibility that Micah may never come home.
Download or read book Mother Noise written by Cindy House and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant, “raw[,] and tender” (The New York Times Book Review) memoir told in essays and graphic shorts about what life looks like twenty years after recovery from addiction—and how to live with the past as a parent, writer, and sober person—from a regular opener for David Sedaris. In the opening of this “unexpectedly uplifting...masterfully crafted memoir” (Shelf Awareness, starred review) Cindy, twenty years into recovery after a heroin addiction, grapples with how to tell her nine-year-old son about her past. She wants him to learn this history from her, not anyone else; but she worries about the effect this truth may have on him. Told in essays and graphic narrative shorts, Mother Noise is a stunning memoir that delves deep into our responsibilities as parents while celebrating the moments of grace and generosity that mark a true friendship—in this case, her benefactor and champion through the years, David Sedaris. This is a powerful memoir about addiction, motherhood, and Cindy’s ongoing effort to reconcile the two. Are we required to share with our children the painful details of our past, or do we owe them protection from the harsh truth of who we were before? With dark humor and brutal, clear-eyed honesty, Mother Noise is “a full-throated anthem of hope, [that] lends light to a dark issue” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Download or read book The Women Who Met Jesus written by Dorothy Valcárcel and published by Revell. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just like us, the women of New Testament times were ambitious, worried, broken, lonely, insecure, and unfulfilled. Discover the powerful stories of their encounters with the perfect, unconditional love of the Savior. Rather than trivializing their problems or ignoring women, Jesus responded to their deepest needs with compassion, reminding them of their value and transforming their past, present, and future. Let this engaging book introduce you to the man who loves women like no other.
