As Needed for Pain: A Memoir of Addiction

by Dan Peres Narrated by Joe Hempel

Overview

In the vein of Mary Karr's Lit, Augusten Burroughs' Dry and Sarah Hepola's Blackout, As Needed for Pain is a raw and riveting-and often wryly funny-addiction memoir from one of New York media's most accomplished editors which explores his never-before-told story of opioid addiction and the drastic impact it had on his life and career.

Dan Peres wasn't born to be a media insider. As an awkward, magic-obsessed adolescent, nothing was further from his reality than the catwalks of Paris or the hallways of glossy magazine publishers. A gifted writer and shrewd cultural observer, Peres eventually took the leap-even when it meant he had to fake a sense of belonging in a new world of famed fashion designers, celebrities, and some of media's biggest names. But he had a secret: opiates.

Peres's career as an editor at W magazine and Details is well known, but little is known about his private life as a high-functioning drug addict. In As Needed for Pain, Peres lays bare for the first time the extent of his drug use-at one point a 60-pill-a-day habit.

By turns humorous and gripping, Peres's story is a cautionary coming-of-age tale filled with unforgettable characters and breathtaking brushes with disaster. But the heart of the book is his journey from outsider to insecure insider, what it took to get him there, and how he found his way back from a killing addiction.

As Needed for Pain offers a rare glimpse into New York media's past-a time when print magazines mattered-and a rarefied world of wealth, power, and influence. It is also a brilliant, shocking dissection of a life teetering on the edge of destruction, and what it took to pull back from the brink.

As Needed for Pain is a gripping addiction memoir that offers a rare glimpse into the world of New York media and the fashion industry, as told by former W magazine and Details editor Dan Peres.

HarperCollins 2024

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Jay McInerney

Peres can write; he crafts deft, unshowy sentences and shapely anecdotes.

Publishers Weekly

02/10/2020

In this frank confessional, former Details editor-in-chief Peres recalls his opioid addiction. Starting with a debasing story of crawling on his hands and knees in search of lost pills on a urine-soaked men’s room floor, Peres flashes back to his awkward 1980s adolescence in upper-middle-class Pikesville, Md., where he indulged his obsessions with magic and magician David Copperfield (who later became a close friend). In the 1990s, the “decidedly unchic” NYU graduate was hired as a reporter for Women’s Wear Daily; around this time, Peres injured his back and first felt “the warm tingling sensation” of Vicodin. He cultivated his addiction quietly for several years; but when Condé Nast tapped the perennially insecure, 28-year-old Peres to lead Details in 2000, the pressure eventually drove him to take more than three dozen pills daily (“as uncontrollable as my drug use had become, there was a fair amount of control involved. I knew exactly how many pills I needed to get buzzed”). Peres hit bottom in 2007, when Sarah, his pregnant wife, threw him out. Peres is a self-effacing writer—and becomes even more so when he tells how, with the support of Copperfield, he gets clean through an outpatient rehab program. By the time his son Oscar was born in 2008, Peres had been sober for 92 days. At times both harrowing and charming, Peres’s story bracingly captures the struggles of addiction. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

"Exactly the right book at exactly the right time... As Needed for Pain must have been difficult to write; it's difficult to read. But it's an important book. While it's just one man's testimony of his journey into and through his addiction to pain killers, it's a universal story that anyone from any background who knows the evil of opiate addiction will deeply relate to."  — Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors and Dry

“This memoir exists in the realm of grace—what causes Dan Peres to take his first pill, what causes him to take his last, remains a mystery. In between there  are magic and lies, mistakes and glamour, pretense and escape."
— Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City 

"With humility, humor and courage, Dan Peres’ story of pretending to be on top of the world when in fact he was hitting rock bottom is a memoir for our times. An eye-opening, enthralling read, AS NEEDED FOR PAIN is an unforgettable memoir." — Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day

Augusten Burroughs

"Exactly the right book at exactly the right time... As Needed for Pain must have been difficult to write; it's difficult to read. But it's an important book. While it's just one man's testimony of his journey into and through his addiction to pain killers, it's a universal story that anyone from any background who knows the evil of opiate addiction will deeply relate to." 

Ayelet Waldman

"With humility, humor and courage, Dan Peres’ story of pretending to be on top of the world when in fact he was hitting rock bottom is a memoir for our times. An eye-opening, enthralling read, AS NEEDED FOR PAIN is an unforgettable memoir."

Nick Flynn

This memoir exists in the realm of grace—what causes Dan Peres to take his first pill, what causes him to take his last, remains a mystery. In between there  are magic and lies, mistakes and glamour, pretense and escape."

Kirkus Reviews

2019-12-02
A memoir from a prominent journalist who was addicted to opiates.

Peres, the former editor-in-chief of Details magazine, makes his debut as a memoirist with an unflinching account of addiction and hard-won recovery. The author was prescribed Vicodin after a back injury and two surgeries, and he recalls how it made his whole body "warm and relaxed. I felt like I'd been wrapped in an electric blanket." After the back pain subsided, he stopped taking the pills, until one evening, getting ready for bed, he impulsively decided that swallowing a few would help him relax. It was, for Peres, a critical moment. Within a year, he was taking 15 pills four times per day. Soon, he lost count of how many he needed: 16, 18, 21 at a time, multiple times daily, and he graduated to the stronger opiate Roxicodone. "I was feeding a beast and it was always hungry," he admits. To keep up the supply needed to avoid "the hell of withdrawal," he went to different doctors, feigning severe back pain. "I knew the names of the doctors listed in the pain management section of the phone book the way some men know the starting lineups of the hometown baseball teams from their youth," he writes. Peres avoided those who wanted to send him for physical therapy, but he agreed to get X-rays or MRIs; after all, he had surgical scars. His back pain was believable. With addiction narratives forming an autobiographical subgenre, Peres' memoir is in many ways predictable: his obsession with what he calls his "pharmaceutical ambitions"; his ability to function at work despite arriving late, napping during the day, and constantly rescheduling appointments; the shocking ease of finding compliant doctors; his pushing away of family and friends. The author alludes to—but doesn't examine—several personal problems that possibly fueled his addiction: depression, insomnia, and "crippling insecurity" that made him hungry for validation. He eventually kicked his habit, and readers will hope his resolve lasts.

A frank revelation about the all-consuming power of addiction.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173508003
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/11/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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