specific groups

Read this book and you may understand why. James Frey's wonderful, dark, and truthful portrait of addiction and the infinitely small possibility of recovery is one of the most honest portrayals of drug addiction that I have ever read. It's not a pretty story as no true story of addiction can be. Frey writes about the gritty reality of life on drugs and never once attempts to glorify any of it. His story is sad, honest, frustrating. Vomit and snot and rage. Victims, brutality, and very little in the way of hope. Frey is a Substance Abuse Counselor's nightmare - he refuses to play by the rules, he won't attempt to "go along and get along", he often bites the hand that feeds him. His addiction is a living thing residing in his head like a monster with huge bloodied teeth. I loved this book. Read it, feel it, learn from it.

A Million Little Pieces explores James' time in a rehabilitation center and his fight back to sobriety. His story is simultaneously heartbreaking and maddening. A child of a very privileged upbringing, James drinks, takes drugs, destroys people and things with little remorse. At the age of 23, after hitting bottom by seriously injuring himself during a blackout, his parents pay his way into an expensive rehabilitation center.

At the rehabiliation center, James meets people with all different types of lives--ex-con's, prostitutes, poor people, very rich people, people who have given up on themselves, and people who are just hanging on. Still retaining his stubborness, James rejects the center's reliance on AA and the 12-steps, and commits to changing his life by the sheer strength of his own will.

There are moments in this book that are heartbreaking--the first 100 pages brought tears to my eyes twice. Even if you don't have empathy for James and his situation, the description of his dental surgery without any medication drags you into James' soul and creates great respect for what ordinary people do--the dentist--to help others.

This book was hard to put down, you can't help wanting everyone at the center to get their lives back, even though you know chances are good they will not. At times, the reading is difficult. Bad things happen to "good" people and "bad" people, and everyone is simply trying to make their way through the world. Merely human, James is simultaneously strong and fragile and so is his reader.

I do not believe in addiction. I believe we all make choices every day on how we want to live. I am not saying it is not a condition, but it is still a conscious choice. We all wake up everyday and choice what we want to be. Some people choose a job and a stable life, and some choose drugs and alcohol.

That being, said, I really like this book. The writing is unique and interesting and really drives the point home.

An overall great read.