|
|
![[INLINE:ONDRUGS]](ondrugs.gif)
The Recovery Revolution
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Book Review
ADDICT: Out of the Dark and Into the Light
By Chris Keeley
Beaux Arts, 365 pages. Limited printing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(The Charleston Gazette)
The Recovery Revolution
Chronicling 51 heroes that conquered themselves
By James A. Haught
Gazette Editor
July 11,1994
There's something heroic about people who win victories over
themselves. It takes courage and character to defeat your own worst
qualities.
This book has 51 such heroesÐdrug-heads who sickened of life in a
stupor, and pulled themselves up to sobriety. They may be battered and
scarred, but they deserve respect.
The publisher, Bo Sewell, says the book is about "the recovery
revolution that is going on...in the underground culture of drug
addiction." He says, correctly, that most Americans see addicts "as
non-persons rather than human beings who have a disease over which they
have no control."
The author, a Washington photographer and drug counselor, makes the
subjects human in two ways: through intensely personal photos, some in
the nude, and by letting the ex-addicts tell their own stories in a
stream-of-consciousness flow.
Typical is Trayceous Klein, a lovely young brunette who was an
abandoned child and grew up with drunken foster parents. She's so
intelligent she skipped two grades in school, yet plunged into alcohol
and pills, then hard narcotics. Although she was an honor student with
scholarships waiting, she dropped out of school and lived in the
chaotic, nomadic twilight of the stoned. "I completely prostituted
myself to have a constant supply of drugs."
Finally, feeling utterly worthless, she attempted suicide, but was
revived in a hospital and forced into treatment. "All of a sudden one
day, something just clicked in my head and I said, ÔGeez, you know what?
You've like wasted your entire life and maybe it's time to do something,
change something, have a future.'"
She did it. She lived clean, gained self-respect, and got a good job
with an insurance firm. She celebrates her "birthday" on the anniversary
of the day she quit.
Other biographies in the book are different, yet they're all tales of
doomed people mustering enough strength to take control of themselves.
Most of the recoverees are white. America's new wave of young black
"crack" addicts isn't representedÐyet the book implies that they, too,
can salvage their lives.
The book shuns the Narcotics Anonymous approach of confidentiality.
Author-photographer Keeley says he asked the subjects to reveal
themselves publicly. "When I explained why I was so enthusiastic about
the book, that I wanted to get the message out that any addict could
stay clean in this non-anonymous fashion, they expressed spontaneous
gratitude."
Publisher Sewell adds:
"Addicts began getting the message in large numbers a brief 14 years
ago. A significant population of clean addicts living free from active
addiction has grown up largely unnoticed and unannounced."
That's heartening. Despite its dismal topic, the book is uplifting.
Keeley grew up all over the world in a foreign service family. After
graduating from the Corcoran School of Art, he hatched the concept of
the book. His father, Robert Keeley, retired ambassador to Greece who
now heads the Mid-East Institute, edited it from his son's handwritten
transcripts. The photos in the book have been exhibited at the Pierides
Gallery in Greece and have appeared in the International Herald Tribune
published in Paris.
The book is available from Beaux Arts, 340 Woodstone Drive, Marietta, Georgia 30068. $35.00 + $5.50 US Shipping and handling.
junkie java quiz
super cool links
Chris keeley's resume
secret surrealist society artwork
dead friends
newest sss art
Chris keeley's art galleries
rationalize,minimize and denial statements
the Intervention Organization
five and ten press - consulting iconoclast
Narcotics Anonymous recovery links
Narcotics Anonymous Recovery
Chris Keeley's Social Documentary Photography
activism
Art links
Big brother
Blinded by Science
Darkside / Gothic
Dharma Road
G E E K
Maul
Music
Surfing Favorite bookmarked links
Pirate
radio
W E I R D O
What's Mailart
Mailart List
Scanner Links
Drugs
