I'M DANCING AS FAST AS I CAN

by Barbara Gordon ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 1979

Will this effectively related account of acute drug withdrawal have a Cinderella ending? At 40, Barbara Gordon was a successful documentary producer with a devoted lover, close friends, and a ready supply of Valium to help her past small anxieties--like traveling south of 57th Street alone. When a friend died, she resolved to kick the habit and, with her psychiatrist's assent, she went off the pills altogether. But Valium (as any informed psychiatrist knows) requires a slow withdrawal--perhaps 5 mg. a week; giving up 30 mg. a day cold turkey precipitated a wrenching physical and emotional crisis which extended for months and necessitated two periods of hospitalization. Gordon fluently chronicles this rugged battle involving her lover's sadistic turnabout, her own paradoxical reactions to subsequent prescriptions, and all-too-familiar deadends with countless therapists until she finds two who help her tunnel out of temporary madness. Like many recent accounts of drug-caused distress, this is candid and fully particularized, psychologically astute . . . and utterly photogenic: studio to beachhouse to Cuckoo's Nest interiors with a man on each set and a supportive woman friend throughout. Gordon never got her job back at CBS but she did make it back to a productive life; here she emerges, in somewhat predictable form, as a tough cookie who collapsed for a while and returned stronger. Her case is not unique but it is both affecting and ably represented.

Pub Date: May 23, 1979

ISBN: 1559213604

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION