Word: denizet
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life Benoit Denizet-Lewis Simon & Schuster; 352 pages...
...stay-at-home mom and shoplifter. Marvin is an 80-year-old alcoholic. Sean is a 20-year-old college student addicted to porn and hookers. And Todd? He's an addiction counselor who also happens to be hooked on booze, crack, gambling, cigarettes and heroin. Author Benoit Denizet-Lewis (who reveals his own long battle with sex addiction in the book) dives deep into the lives of these and four other average Americans who struggle with self-destructive urges. As Denizet-Lewis writes, "nearly 23 million Americans - 9.2 percent of the population twelve or older - are hooked on alcohol...
There's something ugly and fascinating about reading such intimate tales of debasement and depression and failure and self-doubt. Every addict in Denizet-Lewis' book speaks intelligently about his or her disease (this is to be expected; otherwise, there wouldn't be much of a book). They also all show a desire to do the years-long work in therapy and treatment and 12-stepping required - which is what makes their stories both heroic and at the same time kind of insufferable. The repetitive, self-obsessed language and terminology employed by any recovering addict is multiplied eightfold. While each...
...good work here, however, is accomplished in Denizet-Lewis' attempt to expand the definition of addiction, to truly show it as the disease its victims see it to be rather than as a failing of morals or of willpower. Of course he's far from disinterested, as he uses part of the book to discuss his own addiction. Still, he ends on a thought-provoking note. Again, the words come from Jody, the afflicted, conflicted addiction counselor. "We don't have nearly enough people out there screaming until something changes, until we start devoting real money and resources to fighting...