Ninety Days
A Memoir of Recovery
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4.2 • 57 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The goal is ninety. Just ninety clean and sober days to loosen the hold of the addiction that caused Bill Clegg to lose everything. With six weeks of his most recent rehab behind him he returns to New York and attends two or three meetings each day. It is in these refuges that he befriends essential allies including Polly, who struggles daily with her own cycle of recovery and relapse, and the seemingly unshakably sober Asa.
At first, the support is not enough: Clegg relapses with only three days left. Written with uncompromised immediacy, Ninety Days begins where Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man ends-and tells the wrenching story of Clegg's battle to reclaim his life. As any recovering addict knows, hitting rock bottom is just the beginning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stark memoir, a follow-up to Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, literary agent and author Clegg describes his struggle to stay clean . Returning to New York City after a stint in rehab, Clegg faces the ruin he's made of his life: his literary agency has closed, his lover has moved on, and he faces mounting debts with no income to speak of. Making matters worse, in spite of the many meetings Clegg attends, he's helplessly drawn to vice. Many organizations dealing with substance abuse emphasize 90 days sober as a real signpost toward recovery. Clegg discovers that reaching that signpost is going to take him a lot longer than three months. Clegg's spare, nearly minimalist style complements the drama inherent in his material: it's addition through subtraction. At first, his understated approach can seem sketchy, even vague, but the effect is cumulative. By focusing on the struggle through each gray day, Clegg draws the reader into his claustrophobic existence. His distance from both his character and the world short-circuits the addiction memoir tendency toward melodrama. When specific details do seep in selling his mother's silver, a drug-fueled threesome the impact is powerful. With understated craft, Clegg has written a harrowing story.
Customer Reviews
Greatness
I love it when a writer can speak the words in my heart that I have never been able to speak out loud. This is an amazingly honest glimpse of the depths of addiction. I hope that someday I can find the courage to be so transparent.
This guy can write!
Captures the urgency and helplessness that occures in that ninety days. First book was fearless...this one dives deeper into the recover, which was more revealing and so plainfully, heartbreakingly beuatiful. Well done.
Ninety Days
Excellent in every way! It brought me back to my own self made Hell of memories and right on back to today to be ever grateful for where I'm now- Thanks to my Higher Power! That no one is ever cured and to forgive but never ever forget the past because otherwise we will be doomed to repeat that what all most killed us.
Our Higher Power wants us here still for a reason, this book proves it, to help others recover and stay that way.
I Highly recommend this book to All people but especially to those going to meetings and to even more to those who have stopped!!!!
Robert