My Fair Junkie: A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean

by Amy Dresner Narrated by Amy Dresner

Overview

In the tradition of Blackout and Permanent Midnight, a darkly funny and revealing debut memoir of one woman's twenty-year battle with sex, drugs, and alcohol addiction, and what happens when she finally emerges on the other side.

Growing up in Beverly Hills, Amy Dresner had it all: a top-notch private school education, the most expensive summer camps, and even a weekly clothing allowance. But at 24, she started dabbling in meth in San Francisco and unleashed a fiendish addiction monster. Soon, if you could snort it, smoke it, or have sex with, she did.

Smart and charming, with Daddy's money to fall back on, she sort of managed to keep it all together. But on Christmas Eve 2011 all of that changed when, high on Oxycontin, she stupidly "brandished" a bread knife on her husband and was promptly arrested for "felony domestic violence with a deadly weapon."

Within months, she found herself in the psych ward--and then penniless, divorced, and looking at 240 hours of court-ordered community service. For two years, assigned to a Hollywood Boulevard "chain gang," she swept up syringes (and worse) as she bounced from rehabs to halfway houses, all while struggling with sobriety, sex addiction, and starting over in her forties.

In the tradition of Orange Is the New Black and Jerry Stahl's Permanent Midnight, Amy Dresner's My Fair Junkie is an insightful, darkly funny, and shamelessly honest memoir of one woman's battle with all forms of addiction, hitting rock bottom, and forging a path to a life worth living.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

06/26/2017
Dresner, a former stand-up comic and current contributing editor for The Fix, writes about her recovery from drug and alcohol abuse with honesty and irreverent humor. Dresner hit rock bottom when she pulled a knife on her husband while high on OxyContin in 2011. She was charged with domestic violence, sentenced to community service, and was admitted into a chic Hollywood Hills rehab. Dresner’s narration of her messy recovery (she eventually got kicked out of the posh rehab, went on Medicaid, and developed an addiction to Tinder) is interwoven with insights she gains as a recovering addict: “With drugs, you can circumvent all the productive work and fulfilling relationships that you’d normally need in order to have a feeling of wholeness in your life.” While cleaning syringes and human waste off Hollywood Boulevard as part of her community service, Dresner decided to seriously rethink her life. She finds humor in the darkest moments of her addiction and recovery: “Running a women’s sober living is not easy. It’s like herding cats... if the cats were on heroin.” Readers meet Dresner at her worst, but she nevertheless charms throughout her healing. Agent: Peter Steinberg, Foundry Literary + Media. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

"Like Carrie Fisher's 1987 autobiographical novel, Postcards From the Edge, and Mary Karr's 2009 memoir, Lit, Amy Dresner's story of addiction and recovery, My Fair Junkie: A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Stay Clean (Hachette Books), is one for the ages."—Elle

One of BookAuthority's Best Memoir Books of All Time

"Dresner's book is a sickening masterpiece. Hilarious and raw, she cuts to bony truth. I love her!"—Margaret Cho

"Darkly funny, the memoir reckons with demons—sex addiction, drugs, and the quest for sobriety—in brutally honest, entertaining prose."—Refinery29

"Dresner delivered a debut memoir equal parts hilarious and chilling. My Fair Junkie is a must-read story."—POPSUGAR

"Mortifying, hilarious, unsparing, and weirdly life-affirming, My Fair Junkie hits the ground screaming and never lets up. As with all great 'drug memoirs,' the subject of this raw, squirm-fest of an autobiography is not drugs, but what made drugs necessary: the twisted history and relatably depraved torments of the author's own strung-out heart. For fans of Beyond Shame, low-bottom recollectors like Augusten Burroughs and Stephen Elliot, Amy Dresner has earned her spot on the shelf."—Jerry Stahl,author of Permanent Midnight

"Funny, raw, real, and moving. Amy's memoir digs deep inside the world of addiction and takes you on a ride you'd pay to go on again. Amy, like addiction, is a complicated beast that needs to be unraveled and exposed to understand—and she does just that in My Fair Junkie, an incredible read."—Amber Tozer, authorof Sober Stick Figure

"I loved this book! Amy Dresner is the real deal; a fiercely funny writer whose insights into addiction and recovery—and life—are full of truth, free of self-pity, sometimes scathing, often poignant, irresistibly page-turning, and painfully hilarious."—Stephen Guirgis,Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

"The story she tells is hysterically funny at one moment and utterly harrowing the next—and often manages to be both those things at once."—Lawrence Block, NewYork Times bestselling and award-winning crime novelist, journalist, andauthor of the short story collection Enough Rope

"Hypnotic, magical, mesmerizing. Truly great. Amy Dresner is the most startlingly alert, poetic, stunning writer I have come across in decades. She is a real talent such as one rarely encounters."—Ben Stein, lawyer,economist, actor, and author of How to Ruin Your Financial Life

"One of the funniest, most heart wrenching, real, raw, touching, revelatory, and beautiful memoirs I've ever read. It transcends just the addiction lit genre to become something far more universal-something profoundly human-and captivating. I found myself laughing out loud over and over again, while, at the same time, being deeply moved by Dresner's account of addiction to more than just substances, but the need for connection in this increasingly disparate and fractured world."—Nic Sheff, author of Tweakand We All Fall Down

"Fascinating. Uncomfortable....This book is a confessional and an indictment. I've loved girls like Amy and they drug my heart through a human sewer of addiction. I've used girls like Amy and I only feigned to care. Why do I find this so fucking attractive? Well-written. Believable."—Jack Grisham,author of An American Demon

"Amy Dresner breaks my heart into a million pieces—and then slowly helps me put myself back together again. This is a wonderful book, filled with a frenetic mixture of snappy dialogue and terrifying truth."—Peter Scolari

"Dresner, a former stand-up comic and current contributing editor for The Fix, writes about her recovery from drug and alcohol abuse with honesty and irreverent humor. . . . Readers meet Dresner at her worst, but she nevertheless charms throughout her healing."—Publishers Weekly

"Effortlessly candid and wryly written chronicle of a life hijacked by drugs, booze, and bad behavior. As a noted West Hollywood stand-up comedian and addiction journalist, she handles this complex tale with wit ... A hard-knocks addiction memoir buoyed with humor and insight."—Kirkus

"In Dresner's unflinchingly honest, graphic, and darkly comedic account of her life as a junkie and the struggle to come clean, readers will find strength in the humanity of those at their lowest. Dresner brings humility, wit, and sensitivity to a topic many readers are unfamiliar with, and those that are will recognize her truths."—Booklist

"Dresner's story of drugs, sex and a handful of other addictions is wickedly funny and hauntingly honest."—FASHION magazine

"Tranfix[ing]...My Fair Junkie reminds you that sobriety and addiction has many faces, shapes, and stages and affects everyone."—Women.com, "9 Books About Drug Addiction that Shine Light onto the Disease"

Kirkus Reviews

2017-07-04
An addict reflects on her long, bumpy road to eventual recovery."Welcome to the mind of an alcoholic addict," writes Dresner in her effortlessly candid and wryly written chronicle of a life hijacked by drugs, booze, and bad behavior. As a noted West Hollywood stand-up comedian and addiction journalist, she handles this complex tale with wit; while a lot of her pain is deflected through her droll tone, there remains an undertone of suffering and debilitating illness. The narrative is refreshingly devoid of overanalysis on her childhood as the daughter of divorced parents who were "well matched in that they both loved to drink and fight." Instead, the author delves directly into the heart of her own personal darkness, a fight with her husband that escalated into a pulled knife, a restraining order, and nights spent "smoking, squatting, and crying on the dark, quiet, ritzy sidewalks of the Hollywood Hills." A vividly described (and short-lived) fifth visit to a rehab facility provided only a temporary fix. Hospital psychiatric holds, wrist cutting, divorce, emotionless sex, community service, and an admitted lack of impulse control collectively contributed to the author's lowest points, which are depressingly abysmal yet illustrate a brutally honest insider's viewpoint into cyclical, interdependent worlds of rehab, relapse, and recovery. In a conversational, self-deprecating tone, Dresner dictates a nonstop barrage of events in which AA meetings and everyday life blur into one another amid the tragic, rhythmic seesawing between inebriation and rickety detoxification. Some shared memories are crisply drawn, others clouded by the haze of chemically induced euphoria. Other chapters are gilded in some rather self-effacing hindsight wisdom: "I guess I am just one of those stubborn assholes who has to burn their house to the ground to realize you shouldn't play with matches." When Dresner finally decided to take getting clean seriously after performing a monthlong court-ordered service sweeping the condoms and syringes off Santa Monica Boulevard, her resolve is palpable. A hard-knocks addiction memoir buoyed with humor and insight.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170034192
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	09/12/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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