I grew up without all those illusions and naturally gravitated to gritty realism because it mirrored my experience. My book is less interested in the day-to-day mechanics of the lives of drug addicts and lost souls, but rather how they came to be what they are. Just when it seemed life couldn’t get any better, he had a late relapse with drugs.

There is medication-assisted treatment to lessen the symptoms of withdrawal and craving. There is support everywhere, and with it hope. I’ve always been interested in books about lost souls and broken people.

Substance Abuse

The cost of addiction is being seen and felt in every corner of society. Jesus’ Son is a visionary chronicle of dreamers, addicts, and lost souls. These stories tell of spiralling grief and transcendence, of rock bottom and redemption, of getting lost and found and lost again. The narrator of these interlinked stories is a young, unnamed man, reeling from his addiction to heroin and alcohol, his mind at once clouded and made brilliantly lucid by these drugs. In the course of his adventures, he meets an assortment of people, who seem as alienated and confused as he; sinners, misfits, the lost, the damned, the desperate and the forgotten.

In high school, experimentation with other substances led me to buy some Vicodin to try. Later, as a college student at the University of St. Thomas, I went from popping painkillers, to snorting OxyContin, morphine and Dilaudid. Eventually, I graduated to injecting heroin multiple times a day. I wish I could isolate a point in time when I knew I was addicted, but addiction is subtler than that. Drugs go from merely being a part of your life to becoming your life.

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Throughout addiction, you hijack the reward systems in your brain, which makes mental recovery even harder than the physical withdrawals. Cravings can be intense, leaving those in early recovery quite vulnerable. I was always told that recovery is simple, not easy. You’re taught the best practices when supervised, but taking action when you’re not confined to inpatient treatment is tremendously difficult.

This blog provides information, news, and uplifting content to help people in their recovery journey. After Greg’s second stint in prison, he was released and lived with his stepmother, Gail, and me. He was highly engaged with us, and was reclaiming his life.

J.D.’s book list on

Quitting heroin suddenly can cause severe problems for your baby, including death. This website is for informational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. I tried to give up on countless occasions, either by slowly reducing my daily intake or going on a methadone cure, but nothing worked.

I even worked on a degree in English Literature for a while before switching to a more “practical” major. Because of those years of analyzing why some books are truly loved, I know you’ll enjoy these titles as much as I do. It’s a typical tale, abusive and/or indifferent parents, marijuana at https://ecosoberhouse.com/ 12, heroin addict and prostitute by 13. Her story is compellingly told and more tragic than most as we get to know the other 13-year-old boys and girls she hangs out with who also sell themselves for their next fix. The original mass market paperback came out in 1982 and was never reissued.

The Big Fix: Hope After Heroin by Tracey Helton Mitchell

Marah’s struggles began with bouts of depression, anxiety, ADHD and an eating disorder. As the family searched for the right therapy to help her, they learned that she had taken heroin addiction treatment matters into her own hands by self-medicating with substances. One night before Christmas, she snuck out of her house to drink alcohol and stay the night at a boy’s home.