Loaded: Women and Addiction

by Jill Talbot

Overview

Having an addiction can follow the path of a great relationship that goes sour: there’s the first blush of romance, the seduction (“you know you want to”), and the downward spiral into either obsession or breaking free.

Jill Talbot is no stranger to addiction. Part autobiography, part exposé, Loaded: Women and Addiction weaves Talbot's own battles with addiction with various addiction stories of other women. The result is a captivating, honest look at the allure of addiction—be it to sex, drugs, alcohol, food, adventure, or infidelity—and ultimately its betrayal.

Though addiction can be seductive, if you’re waking up with guilt or making choices that harm others, it’s probably a clue that things are out of control. Throughout Loaded, Talbot's razor-sharp honesty, heartbreaking self-awareness, and resolve to reveal the difficult truth of her relationship with past and present addictions is humbling and sometimes gut-wrenching. In sharing her struggles and her resolve to attain control over her addictions, Talbot speaks her truth while sending a message of hope to women everywhere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580052184
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/28/2007
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	8.22(w) x 10.92(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Jill Talbot received an MA in Creative Writing from University of Colorado at Boulder, where she was the recipient of the 2002 Jovanovich Prize in Poetry (judged by Quincy Troupe) and the 2003 Jovanovich Manuscript Prize, along with the John Barker Scholarship for Creative Writers and a CU Fellowship. She has a PhD in American Literature from Texas Tech University. Her work has been published in Under the Sun, Cimarron Review, Blue Mesa Review, Notre Dame Review, and It’s All Good (Manic D Press). She is the coeditor of The Art of Friction: Where (Non) Fictions Come Together with novelist Charles Blackstone (The University of Texas Press, forthcoming 2008). She lives in Wichita, Kansas.

Table of Contents

Introduction     ix
Secrets
My Grandmother's Flowers     2
A Part of Me     14
What Little I Know Is Enough     23
The Ones Who     35
Li(f)e     62
Seductions
On Longing     72
My Two Countries     79
New Mexico Road     89
Driving Through Kansas     100
Blue-Collar Men     108
Sexagenarian     117
The Space in Between     128
Substance
Wild Girl     138
What I Remember     143
Disappearing     149
Home     158
Wild Bill's Words     171
Park City Queen     184
Point of View     194
Significance
Driving 1-15     210
Viva Terlingua!     212
Missing Mexico     222
The Streets of Former Desire     243
The Last Time     250
Conclusion. The Weight of It All     257