Book Nook - ADDICTED TO THE ADDICTED: A Mother’s Tale of Going from Heartbreak to Hopeful

 “My son may not be a corpse, but for most of his life he’s been a drugged-out zombie.”

NEW YORK -- With these words, Marguerite Connelly introduces readers both to her son, Timothy, and to the heartfelt, honest tone that propels her powerful memoir, ADDICTED TO THE ADDICTED: A Mother’s Tale of Going from Heartbreak to Hopeful (out now from Willowbrook Publishers).  For any mother to describe her son in that way takes the courage of radical honesty, but it is just such radical honesty that has helped Connelly survive as her family is threatened with destruction by the perils of substance abuse.  And to adopt that radical honesty was an act of deep love for her son that has sustained her in her fight.

Timothy smoked marijuana for the first time at the age of 10, and some years later moved on to his longtime drug of choice: heroin.  But his is hardly the only addiction that has helped to define his mother’s life.  Born into a family of substance abusers, Marguerite married a man who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic.  Both of their children developed addictions - Timothy to drugs and Kerriann to alcohol.  And Marguerite herself became addicted to protecting Timothy.  “He can make me feel more alive or close to death in an instant,” she writes.  “Like a drug, his effect on me is so powerful that it runs through my veins right to my head and straight to my heart.”  Only once she learned to treat this addiction in herself has she found balance in the struggle to keep Timothy safe.

Marguerite Connelly has written an extraordinary memoir, by turns devastating and uplifting, that gives a firsthand tour of the world of addiction and its ripple effects in families.  Along with Connelly, readers will explore:

• The shady side of the “recovery industry” that seeks to prey on addicts’ terrified loved ones
• The surprising potential benefits for addicts of serving time in prison
• How laws and policies designed to “help” drug users can actually hurt them
• How to practice self-care and balance that with caring for an addicted loved one
• The triumph of recovery, as evidenced by Kerriann’s journey to sobriety

America is struggling in the grip of an opioid epidemic that threatens millions and touches the lives of millions more.  At the same time, some politicians have decided that less law enforcement is the way to deal with rising crime, especially drug offenses.  As a result, open-air drug markets and homeless encampments full of their customers flourish in American cities.  Connelly takes a stand against this trend, arguing that drug use should still have consequences, and that combining jail with treatment can help addicts by protecting them from the wide availability of drugs on the outside.

• More than 96,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States were reported from March 2020 to March 2021
• 7 out of 10 drug overdose deaths had opioids as a factor in 2020
• A number of America's previously most prosperous and populous states, which have adopted some of the most lenient drug and crime laws in recent years, saw their populations decline–California shrunk by 0.3 percent, New York by 0.9 percent, Illinois by 0.8 percent and Oregon by 0.4 percent between 2020 and 2022

As drugs proliferate and the opioid crisis claims more and more lives, more and more Americans will count their loved ones among its victims.  Connelly has written ADDICTED TO THE ADDICTED for all of them, and for anyone who wants to better understand the human side of this devastating struggle.  Only by destigmatizing the topic of addiction, Connelly argues, can we better understand what our loved ones, our neighborhoods, our cities and our nation are going through.  "If mothers continue to cry in the closet because they are afraid of what their neighbors think, how will we ever resolve the problem?” she says.  “We are losing the power of the village.”

Our ability to reclaim that power lies in the strength of mothers, and all of those who care about the victims of opioid addiction.  With prose that Kirkus Reviews called “simple but affecting, revealing deep wells of frustration and love,” Connelly has written an essential guide for breaking out of the prison of stigma and shame and into the light of love and understanding.