This is a Leonberger blog but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers, and in those cases it is books that I really like and that I want to recommend. This is another one of those. I recently read Induced Coma Paperback – by Tanya Taylor Morris.
- Paperback – December 11, 2023, ASIN : B0CQ6CY13Q, ISBN-13 : 979-8218304096, 150 pages, Item Weight : 8.8 ounces, dimensions : 5.5 x 0.34 x 8.5 inches, it cost $10.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Kindle – December 7, 2023, ASIN : B0CPTQMK6L, 146 pages. It is currently $4.99 on Amazon.com or free with Kindle Unlimited. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Amazon’s description of the book
The true story of a mother’s desperate attempt to save her family from the deadly grip of drugs and the destruction of her family. Intelligent, handsome, and loving Austin chooses drugs at a young age. After a tragic accident at seventeen and many attempts to overcome his addiction to Heroin and Methamphetamines, he succumbs to the “monkey on his back”.
He is determined to beat his addiction, but he has another addiction affecting his family. Their drug addiction leads to a broken family, a divorced mother, suicide and the loss of their dreams.
My Amazon Review of Induced Coma
A Series of Very Unfortunate Events and One Woman’s Impossible Fight
I briefly met the author at a book signing event. She is a very nice lady. In this intense book she is sharing her personal and very painful story about how drug addiction destroyed her family. The book starts out with her husband of 20 years wanting a divorce. Soon after that unexpected revelation, she finds out that he has a much younger girlfriend, who is a drug addict, a prostitute, and a criminal and she is going to jail. As it turns out, he is also a drug addict, he commits crimes, and he is a drug dealer and a pimp, and he also goes to jail. Gone are all the plans they had for the future.
He lies to her, betrays her, tricks her, steals from her, accumulates debts that are in the hundreds of thousands (they were middle class), destroys the business they built together, and he is cruel to her. One of his prostitutes accosts her publicly and the police must save her. All her former husband seems to care about is getting money for the next fix, no matter whom he hurts in the process. After all that, things got a lot worse. She tries to make things OK again, and she seems to still love him despite it all, and she writes about his positive qualities. Eventually she learns to protect herself. Their son is also a drug addict who committed a couple of horrific crimes that landed him in jail for a very long time. She writes lovingly about him despite his actions, which some may find problematic. However, the way I see it is; that’s the way mothers are, and it’s the way we want them to be.
The author certainly went through hell, and she did her best to turn things around. Despite that fact, some family members were hostile towards her. I am not too surprised. It is very difficult to see things from a different perspective than your own self-serving perspective, which is why victims often are victimized again by judgmental people and it is also why families fight with each other, and blame each other, instead of supporting each other. The author is certainly a very brave and strong woman.
The book was a real eye opener to me. I knew about the devastation drugs are causing in the United States, but this book made it more personal to me and it made it clear to me how devastating it can be. Drug addiction can turn normal people into monsters who are a danger to their families and to society. The author warns parents about the danger of drugs, especially Fentanyl and she states that between 2000 and 2022 one million Americans died from overdose. Drug overdoses increased by 255% between 2000 and 2019. To that I can add that according to Wikipedia 41,034 people have died in the war between the drug cartels and the Mexican government since 2006. I have never taken an illicit drug, which some think is being a killjoy, but considering the devastation drugs are causing in the US we could probably do well without any recreational drug use. I highly recommend this book because it is a great read, a real page turner, but it also has an important message to us all about the drug addiction pandemic ravaging the land.
Leonberger Life 