My Fair Junkie [2018, PDF/EPUB, ENG]

by Amy Dresner

(2,276 ratings)
Book cover
In the tradition of Blackout and Permanent Midnight, a darkly funny and revealing debut memoir of one woman's twenty-year battle with sex, drugs, and alcohol addiction, and what happens when she finally emerges on the other side.

Growing up in Beverly Hills, Amy Dresner had it all: a top-notch private-school education, the most expensive summer camps, and even a weekly clothing allowance. But at 24, she started dabbling in meth in San Francisco and unleashed a fiendish addiction monster. Soon, if you could snort it, smoke it, or have sex with it, she did.

Thus began a spiral that eventually landed her in the psych ward--and then penniless, divorced, and looking at 240 hours of court-ordered community service. For two years, assigned to a Hollywood Boulevard 'chain gang,' she swept up syringes (and worse) as she bounced from rehabs to halfway houses, all while struggling with sobriety, sex addiction, and starting over in her forties. In the tradition of
Orange Is the New Black and Jerry Stahl's Permanent Midnight, this is an insightful, darkly funny, and shamelessly honest memoir of one woman's battle with all forms of addiction, hitting rock bottom, and forging a path to a life worth living..
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Book details


  • Author : Amy Dresner
  • Publisher : Hachette Books; Reprint edition
  • Published : 09-17-2018
  • Language : English
  • Pages : 256
  • ISBN-10 : 0275945723
  • ISBN-13 : 978-0316430937
  • Reader Reviews : 2,276 (4.5)

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  • File Formats : PDF, FB2, DOC, EPUB, TXT
  • Status : available for FREE download
  • Downloads : 3548

About the Author


Amy Dresner


Amy Dresner is a former professional stand-up comic, having appeared at The Comedy Store, The Laugh Factory, and The Improv. Since 2012, she has been a contributing editor of the online addiction and recovery magazine TheFix.com. She’s also written for the Good Men Project, The Frisky, Refinery 29, and has been a regular contributor to Addiction.com and PsychologyToday.com, where she has her own addiction blog entitled “Coming Clean.” “My Fair Junkie” is her debut book. Visit her website: www.amydresner.com

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Reader Reviews

J
Isabella
Just what I needed to hear
Reviewed in Australia on 05-15-2019
Just turned 3 years sober and finished this book - HP at work. So much fear, pain and addiction has been shared by the author - much gratitude. Respect for the grace, willingness and sometimes fierce determination to turn life around. Vulnerability and building attachments can eat away at resilience and hope - following the footsteps of those before me allows me to hand it over.
Thank you.
ODAAT
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Dr. Bob Weathers
The Best Antidote for Shame, the Best Invitation to Compassion You’ll Ever Read
Reviewed in the United States on 10-17-2017
Amy Dresner’s book is the single truest introduction to the insides of addiction, and recovery, which I’ve yet read. Is it offensive? Hell yes, and thank God: addiction is offensive! There’s no addict — to alcohol or other drugs, or for that matter, to all the behaviors we get enslaved to — who won’t see themselves in Amy’s story. And that’s the very good news...

For loved ones of addicts and/or those in recovery, here’s finally the basis, from the true-to-life underbelly of addiction, to understand what is actually going on for your loved one. Who knows: you might even find empathy where before you only found judgment, revulsion, and bottomless anger and frustration.

And for those of us who have been (or maybe still are) addicted, Amy’s book is a manifesto for self-compassion. She is unsparing in her description of the interiority of addiction; yet she gets us to laugh first at herself, then ideally, ourselves. In a slight variation on Oscar Wilde’s observation: “Recovery is too important to be taken seriously.” Amy gets this...

There’s not a soul out there, currently in recovery, who hasn’t encountered the huge, reflexive stigma (sometimes outside, nearly always inside) directed at the individual in recovery — it just means you were addicted, right; and that ain’t ever a compliment. Who couldn’t then benefit from some major grace, laced with self-forgiving humor, amidst that everpresent outer/inner stigma?

I believe there’s liberation in good information — liberation from the shame which otherwise paralyzes the best of intentions — and brilliant Amy is one of the great liberators.
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rob
Essential reading for addicts and those who feel 'other'
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 01-29-2019
I stumbled upon this book purely by chance.

Having had a history of addiction / mental health problems myself I thought I'd give it a read.

This really is essentially reading for anyone who has known the pain of depression and mental illness and sought solace through self medication.

Dresner articulates the misery of a brain that tells you you're worthless with such candour and honesty while relating the pointless act of self medication with a gallows humour second to none.

This book is up there with The Bell Jar. And that's the highest compliment I can bestow upon it.

It's not just a cracking read within itself, but for anyone who is on the road to recovery it's as essential as the big book itself in so much as here's exactly what not to do.

This is an important and brave book which could ultimately save lives, which isn't something that can be said for many books.

Bravo Miss Dresner. This is a triumph of which you should be very proud.
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