by Katherine Ketcham ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2018
An expressive account of one family’s struggles to help a child with serious addiction issues.
A woman struggles to cope with her son’s addictions.
With three decades of teaching and multiple books on addiction under her belt, Ketcham (co-author: The Pain Antidote: The Proven Program to Help You Stop Suffering from Chronic Pain, Avoid Addiction to Painkillers—and Reclaim Your Life, 2015, etc.) was considered an expert on the subject, but she was totally unprepared when she discovered her son, Ben, was addicted to drugs and alcohol. In this honest account, the author shares her doubts, fears, anger, and angst as she and her husband strove to help Ben in any way that they could. She readily admits she missed the beginning telltale signs of his drug use, which started in high school. “Addiction isn’t a choice,” she writes, “it’s not a moral failure, a maladaptive lifestyle habit, or a developmental learning disorder—it’s a brain disease that is both chronic and progressive.” Yet these knowledgeable words often brought little comfort as she attempted to help Ben, who fought against most of the help he was given, including expensive rehab treatments. Ketcham ponders whether she was too heavy-handed in her counseling and suggestions when Ben’s abuse became obvious, and she even questions her effectiveness as a mother. She chronicles her discussions of her work with kids in juvenile detention, and she uses excerpts from some of her earlier books to help clarify some of the ideas she explores. She also examines concepts of spirituality, forgiveness, and change as she relates the many years it took before Ben decided to get clean. The author’s hard-won wisdom and often unanswerable questions help readers see the far-reaching effects of alcohol and drug abuse, and the inclusion of comments from Ben demonstrates the pain and anguish felt on all sides of the situation.
An expressive account of one family’s struggles to help a child with serious addiction issues.Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62203-977-7
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Sounds True
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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