Addicted: Notes from the Belly of the Beast

by Lorna Crozier (Editor), Patrick Lane (Editor), Susan Cheever (Contribution by), Tom Bissell (Contribution by), Molly Jong-Fast (Contribution by)

Overview

Is addiction a disease, a sin, a sign of hypersensitivity, a personal failing, or a unique resource for the creative mind? However it is defined, addiction can have devastating consequences, often shattering lives, sundering families, causing impoverishment, and even triggering suicide. Yet it can also be a source of inspiration. In these frank essays, leading American and Canadian writers explore their surprisingly diverse personal experiences with this complex phenomenon, candidly recounting what happened when alcohol, heroin, smoking, food, gambling, or sex — sometimes in combination — took over their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771641869
Publisher:	Greystone Books
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	691,363
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lorna Crozier's award-winning books of poetry include The Blue Hour of the Day and Inventing the Hawk. She is also the author of the memoir Small Beneath the Sky and the editor of several anthologies. Patrick Lane is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, as well as the best-selling memoir What the Stones Remember, about emerging from a lifetime of addiction. Both live in Saanichton, BC.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Counting the Bones Patrick lane 1

My Father, Myself Marnie Woodrow 17

Grand Thefts Tom Bissell 35

Junkie Grows Up Molly Jong-Fast 55

An Open Letter to Laura Lois Simmie 67

How to Quit Smoking in Fifty Years or Less Peter Gzowski 79

More and More Evelyn Lau 103

Breathing under Ice Lorna Ckozier 117

The Edge of Doom Susan Cheever 137

Lost in a Cosmic Smoke Show Elianna Lev 149

Drinking David Adams Richards 169

Blackout Sheri-D Wilson 187

Molested Child, So-Called Sexual Savage LesLIE 209

Not Swimming, But Drowning John Newlove 223

One More Last Chance Rick Whitaker 241

Junkie Stephen Reid 255

Afterword 277

About the Contributors 281