Strung Out
One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me
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- ¥1,700
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- ¥1,700
発行者による作品情報
“This is a story she needed to tell; and the rest of the country needs to listen.”
— New York Times Book Review
“This vital memoir will change how we look at the opioid crisis and how the media talks about it. A deeply moving and emotional read, STRUNG OUT challenges our preconceived ideas of what addiction looks like.”
—Stephanie Land, New York Times bestselling author of Maid
In this deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her fifteen-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction.
Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen. The drug allowed her to escape from pressures to be perfect and suppress all the heavy feelings she couldn’t understand.
This fiercely honest memoir explores how heroin shaped every aspect of her life for the next fifteen years and details the various lies she told herself, and others, about her drug use. With enormous heart and wisdom, she shows how the shame and stigma surrounding addiction, which fuels denial and deceit, is so often what keeps addicts from getting help. There is no one path to recovery, and for Khar, it was in motherhood that she found the inner strength and self-forgiveness to quit heroin and fight for her life.
Strung Out is a life-affirming story of resilience while also a gripping investigation into the psychology of addiction and why people turn to opioids in the first place.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Freelance writer Khar holds nothing back in this moving debut memoir about addiction. She had been sexually abused and suffered depression beginning at age four; at eight, Khar filches a narcotic painkiller from her mother's medicine cabinet and feels release from her emotional pain. She begins a drug habit, and at 13, moves on to heroin. Khar unflinchingly recounts being raped by an ex-boyfriend and details a long string of destructive relationships. At one point, she becomes pregnant by an aging rock star and reluctantly has an abortion. There are years of rehab and relapse until at age 28, in 2002, Khar finds out she's pregnant for a second time and enters a short-lived, emotionally abusive marriage. After the birth of her son, Atticus, in 2003 Khar quits cold turkey. Rebuilding her life, she starts a blog, enters a healthy relationship, and eventually gives birth to a second son. Khar writes that she chose to share her story in an effort to reduce the stigma associated with having a drug addiction, "which prevents people from reaching out." This heartbreaking yet heartwarming memoir puts a human face on the drug crisis and the factors that lead to addiction.
