Apology to the Young Addict

"The third panel in Brown’s masterwork triptych on addiction from youth to sixty, Apology to the Young Addict also accomplishes at last a staggeringly rare mercy—on the ghosts of memory, the ravages of disease, the brutal hypocrisies of religion, and finally—most shockingly—on himself.” —Gina Frangello, author of Every Kind of Wanting and A Life in Men

Husband, addict, father, skeptic.

Now sixty—with years of sobriety under his belt—and the father of three sons, JamesBrown writes about finding a new path in life, making peace with the family whose ghostshave haunted him, and helping the next generation of addicts overcome their disease. Openingwith the tragic tale of an elderly couple consumed by opioid addiction and moving throughthe horrors of a Las Vegas massacre to the loss of a beloved sponsor, these essays draw onBrown’s personal journey of recovery to illustrate how an individual life, in all its messinessand charm, can offer a blueprint for healing. Haunting and hopeful, Apology to the YoungAddict is a reinvention of the recovery memoir and a lasting testimony from a master writingat his peak.