The true story of my addiction to cocaine and meth and the control it had over my life for over ten years. Beginning at the age of three when my brother dies in a car accident to my first incarceration and beyond.It is gritty and brutally honest, and sometimes uncomfortable to read. Discover the events that lead me away from a promising career in football college to a prison cell. I care for nothing, including my mortality. I willingly risk losing the respect of family and friends to take and supply drugs. During all of this I had a child, and even that didn't change my ways. This story will enlighten you on the mindset of an addict and the control addiction has over you.
A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times "A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.”-New York Post The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future. Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland is the story of the drug as it infiltrates the community of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), a once-thriving farming and railroad community. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by meth and the global forces that have set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy. Oelwein, Iowa is like thousand of other small towns across the county. It has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy and an out-migration of people. If this wasn't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has come to town, touching virtually everyone's lives. Journalist Nick Reding reported this story over a period of four years, and he brings us into the heart of the town through an ensemble cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose case load is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime, and Jeff Rohrick, who is still trying to kick a meth habit after four years. Methland is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives the drug has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war. It will appeal to readers of David Sheff's bestselling Beautiful Boy, and serve as inspiration for those who believe in the power of everyday people to change their world for the better.
Apple Best Books of 2021 Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal * Shortlisted for the Zocalo Book Prize From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair. Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States. Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. “In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers,” he writes, “our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.” Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable. Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones's award-winning Dreamland.
Jack Sutherland, the narrator and protagonist of this memoir has, you might say, led a charmed life in the face of seeming damnation. A confirmed alcoholic in his early teens, by his twenties he was PA and bodyguard to the Hollywood stars most notably Michael Stipe, Ru Paul and Mickey Rourke. His work took him to exotic destinations around the world and bizarre encounters and requests. It also led him back to a smorgasbord of lethal addictions: alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy and perhaps most damaging of all crystal meth and the crazed chem sex that characterises its use. On the shores of death's coastline, a nine stone skeleton in a frame that once boasted the shape and tone of a bodybuilder, Jack is saved. By his father, one of the literary world's most esteemed personalities: John Sutherland.A son's memoir told through the prism and prose of a father will surely take its place among the classics of contemporary addiction and recovery stories like A Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. Stars, Cars & Crystal Meth lifts the lid on the shadow world of the Hollywood PA with grim but ultimately inspiring honesty.
"Impossible to put down. It haunts me still.” -Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir A riveting, deeply personal exploration of the opioid crisis-an empathic memoir infused with hints of true crime. In November 2013, Rose Andersen's younger sister Sarah died of an overdose in the bathroom of her boyfriend's home in a small town with one of the highest rates of opioid use in the state. Like too many of her generation, she had become addicted to heroin. Sarah was 24 years old. To imagine her way into Sarah's life, Rose revisits their volatile childhood, marked by their stepfather's omnipresent rage and their father's pathological lying. As the dysfunction comes into focus, so does a broader picture of the opioid crisis and the drug rehabilitation industry in small towns across America. And when Rose learns from the coroner that Sarah's cause of death was a methamphetamine overdose, the story takes a wildly unexpected turn. As Andersen sifts through her sister's last days, we come to recognize the contours of grief and its aftermath: the psychic shattering which can turn to anger, the pursuit of an ever-elusive verdict, and the intensely personal rites of imagination and art needed to actually move on. Reminiscent of Alex Marzano-Lesnevich's The Fact of a Body, Maggie Nelson's Jane: A Murder, and Lacy M. Johnson's The Other Side, Andersen's debut is a potent, profoundly original journey into and out of loss.
Hurricane Katrina took her mother and granmother. And even though Laurel Daneau has moves on to a new life--one that includes a new best friend, a spot on the cheerleading squad, and dating the co-captain of the football team--she can't get past the pain of that loss. Then her new boyfriend introduces her to meth, and Laurel is instantly seduced by its spell, the way it erases, even if only temporarily, her memories. Soon Laurel is completely hooked, a shell of her former self, desperate to be whole again, but lacking the strength to break free. But with the help of a new friend--and the loyalty of an old one--she is able to rewrite her own story and move on with her own life. Dreamlike in quality and weaving flashbacks to the hurricane in with Laurel's present-day struggles, this is a stunning novel that readers won't want to miss.
Murder and Meth in the High Desert is the true story of the 1987 kidnapping and murder of police drug informant Denise Williams. The book follows the lives of the victim, the suspects, and the police officers who investigated the case. One suspect is murdered prior to being convicted. One suspect pleads guilty, and the other stands trial for the murder. The book follows the trial and appeals of this suspect, with actual court testimony from some of the many court trials and hearings. Alan Creech, the lead detective on the Denise Williams case, becomes obsessed with solving the murder. The book describes the many twists and turns the case takes, including the theft of evidence and the attempted murder of a police service dog.
"Steve box speaks with an authority that only comes from a Holy Spirit experience. Steve's burning desire to educate the users of methamphetamines to its dangers, both physical and spiritual, comes from the nightmare experiences of many years of sustained drug use ..."--Cover by Phillip Mcclendon.
After more than 23 years addicted to methamphetamine and other drugs, Parnell put an SKS assault rifle under his chin and pulled the trigger. Here he chronicles how that desperate act pulled him out of his personal hell.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A MAJOR FILM, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND BAFTA AND GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATED TIMOTHEE CHALAMET ‘It was like being in a car with the gas pedal slammed down to the floor and nothing to do but hold on and pretend to have some semblance of control. But control was something I'd lost a long time ago.’ Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age 11. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer to convince him otherwise. In a voice that is raw and honest, Nic spares no detail in telling us the compelling true story of his relapse and the road to recovery. He paints an extraordinary picture for us of a person at odds with his past, with his family, with his substances, and with himself. Tweak is a raw, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful tale of the road from relapse to recovery and complements his father’s parallel memoir, Beautiful Boy. Praise for Nic Sheff:- ‘Difficult to read and impossible to put down.’Chicago Tribune 'Nic Sheff's wrenching tale is told with electrifying honesty and insight.' Armistead Maupin
