Drug Addicts Given a Voice in New Book
If you’re looking for a book about addiction and addicts, personal stories that you can identify with or that will help you understand what a loved one is going through, here’s one for you: “America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. Told from the viewpoint of the addicts themselves, the book tells the stories of eight addicts over several years.
Eight Addicts in Search of a Life
Each of the addicts in Denizet-Lewis’ book suffer from a different mix of issues from heroin, crystal meth, prescription drug and/or crack addiction to other anti-social problems like shoplifting, gambling, sex and pornography and food obsession. The book lets them tell much of their story in their own words leaving the author to drop historical and scientific facts along the way.
There are direct quotes of back and forth conversations, for example, between a food addict named Ellen and her sponsor. A heroin addiction named Bobby gives his viewpoint on the world from his dreary South Boston address. He says, “Sometimes I think God could do us a favor and crash a 747 into this [expletive] place.”
True to Life
In the introduction, Denizet-Lewis makes sure to point out that the book contains no composite characters or made-up scenes. He even openly discusses his own struggle with sex addiction and answers hard to answer questions like: How is sex addiction even possible? And what’s wrong with becoming an alcoholic at the age of 80?
Far from preachy, it’s more of a documentary style book with an objective view of addiction told by the people going through it rather than some of the more personal memoir-style one-view books on the market or the clinical, more distant and psychological or scientific books. It’s real and it’s honest and it’s interesting.
Difficult Paths, Hopeful Ending
It’s not an easy read in that it doesn’t just show a joyful, straight shot from the bottom of addiction to the top of a successful recovery. There are successes but not cookie cutter, typical wins for the addicts in the book but there is definitely hope in the final pages. Even a call to action by Jody who went from an addict in recovery to a treatment director helping other addicts fight their disease. She says: “People in recovery need to stand up and demand to be counted. We don’t have nearly enough people out there screaming until something changes, until we start devoting real money and resources to fighting this disease.”
Have you read “America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis? Any other good books you read that you’d recommend to those in recovery or family and friends of those who are struggling with addiction?
Tags: addiction recovery, Drug Addiction, Drug Addiction Treatment, drug addicts
