Lost and Found: Memoir of an Addict - 9781475991529

Lost and Found presents an accurate and true account of an addict's life before, during, and after his chronic addiction to drugs-specifically, to crack cocaine. The majority of addicts never get the chance to live in recovery long term. They end up prematurely dead or in a jail due to drug-related crimes. The life of an addict is bleak, unchanging, and spent primarily in denial-denial that there is a problem or that they need help.

With addiction being as prevalent as it is, author Stephen C. Waller felt compelled to tell his story as honestly as possible as it relates to his addiction. The journey of an addict is paved with many starts and stops. The addiction dictates their every action, and it fuels their unrealistic sense of self-worth. Until the addict believes that they have a problem, no one can help them.

Waller describes the disintegration of his life, from his career as a very successful dentist-a lucrative dental practice that allowed him a new Porsche and a beautiful home-through a downward spiral into addiction and unemployment that left him living with his elderly mother and aunt. He then goes on to consider what factors brought him into long-term recovery.

Brutally honest throughout, Lost and Found chronicles a journey through the life of an addict, beginning before the active addiction, through the thirty-four years of drug use, and into the following sixteen years of sobriety.