I Married A Junkie

The Addictions Coach Dr. Cali Estes and her husband, professional drummer Tim Estes come clean about their amazing story as the couple struggled with Tim's heroin addiction which threatened to end their relationship...and his life. Cali grew up in rough and tumble, blue-collar Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Surviving a childhood where verbal abuse was the norm, Cali made her way to higher education, motivated to make something of herself. After realizing she was addicted to food and finding a path to her own recovery, Cali found success in the business world before it all came crashing down. On her way back up, she discovers Tim in New York City, an aspiring rock musician who had migrated north after leaving his "American Dream" upbringing in Florida. Tim brought aspirations of making it big, like his idols Mötley Crüe, along with a penchant for cocaine and the rock n' roll lifestyle. Cali and Tim launch their new lives together and celebrate with a move to the warm Florida sunshine, where Cali's Addiction Coaching business begins to thrive and so does Tim's new passion for heroin. This is the story of a relationship overwhelmed by an unbelievable force, addiction. This force attempts to repeatedly destroy Cali and Tim, but through will and determination, the couple finds a way to continue the fight. The fight for the love they know is there, hiding beneath a wicked and drug-fueled storm. "Cali is a true survivor in life and has taken her pain and turned that negative into a truly positive situation. Cali helps more people than most and remains humble. This book is a must-read for everyone." - Tim Ryan, A&E's Dope Man and A Man in Recovery Foundation "Dr. Cali Estes helps clients reach their ultimate goal, a lifetime of sobriety. This amazing book is a small peek into what powers her desire to help educate the world on addiction. I'm glad to call you coach!" - Vance Johnson, former Denver Bronco and Personal Trainer / Coach at Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches

Chronicles the author's international travels with his wife to Africa, China, Bali, and other places.

What's it like to be married to a drug addict? What should you do if you think your spouse is addicted to crack cocaine? What is crack cocaine? Having been raised during the 50s and 60s, the author had little exposure to drugs except alcohol. Then, through the eyes of his younger wife ..., he got the education he never had previously. ... His world was falling apart from a substance he knew nothing about.--Page [4] of 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, she did. Smart and charming, with Daddy's money to fall back on, she sort of managed to keep it all together. But on Christmas Eve 2011 all of that changed when, high on Oxycontin, she stupidly "brandished" a bread knife on her husband and was promptly arrested for "felony domestic violence with a deadly weapon." Within months, she found herself 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, Amy Dresner's My Fair Junkie 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.

Many women and men have lost them selves trying to save a love one from an addiction of a love one. Whether it be alcohol or drugs. It takes a toll of the love ones. It is easy to say what you will do, and won't put up with until your faced with the situation. It's a hard pill to swallow. This is just a book to encourage those. To let you know you still can live a productive live. It's just going to take some tough choices.

I was dead for thirty seconds. That's what the cop in Fall River told me. When the EMTs found me, there was a needle in my arm and a packet of heroin in the front seat. At basketball-crazy Durfee High School in Fall River, Massachusetts, junior guard Chris Herren carried his family's and the city's dreams on his skinny frame. His grandfather, father, and older brother had created their own sports legends in a declining city; he was the last, best hope for a career beyond the shuttered mills and factories. Herren was heavily recruited by major universities, chosen as a McDonald's All-American, featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story, and at just seventeen years old became the central figure in Fall River Dreams, an acclaimed book about the 1994 Durfee team's quest for the state championship. Leaving Fall River for college, Herren starred on Jerry Tarkanian's Fresno State Bulldogs team of talented misfits, which included future NBA players as well as future convicted felons. His gritty, tattooed, hip-hop persona drew the ire of rival fans and more national attention: Rolling Stone profiled him, 60 Minutes interviewed him, and the Denver Nuggets drafted him. When the Boston Celtics acquired his contract, he lived the dream of every Massachusetts kid—but off the court Herren was secretly crumbling, as his alcohol and drug use escalated and his life spiraled out of control. Twenty years later, Chris Herren was married to his high-school sweetheart, the father of three young children, and a heroin junkie. His basketball career was over, consumed by addictions; he had no job, no skills, and was a sadly familiar figure to those in Fall River who remembered him as a boy, now prowling the streets he once ruled, looking for a fix. One day, for a time he cannot remember, he would die. In his own words, Chris Herren tells how he nearly lost everything and everyone he loved, and how he found a way back to life. Powerful, honest, and dramatic, Basketball Junkie is a remarkable memoir, harrowing in its descent, and heartening in its return.

Dina Bennett’s on the road again—and she can’t stop! Having completed the 7,800-mile Peking to Paris Classic Car Challenge while braving carsickness and patching rocky marital relations, she’s once more in over her head, enduring 100,000 miles of road trips through the world’s out-of-the-way places. Drawn to strange foods and intriguing views into the kaleidoscope of local life, and with a knack for getting into—and out of—awkward situations, Dina gives you the world in all its glory. She’s a born storyteller, uncovering the curious and unusual in the ordinary, bringing you along on vivid experiences in laugh-out-loud style. Neither particularly brave nor wild, she opens her diary of personal triumphs and embarrassments, suspense and discovery, in places most will never get to. Join her as she stands knee-to-knee with a Tajik border guard in his bedroom, hunts down camel pad meat in the street markets of China, and seeks out the source of mare’s milk in Kyrgyzstan. Whether stranded on a sandbar in Myanmar’s Chindwin River or sharing barley beer with an ex-Black Panther in Ethiopia, Dina’s observations are half prying neighbor, half best friend gossiping together on the crooked path to enlightenment. The tales in A Travel Junkie’s Diary plunge the reader right into the midst of exhilarating travel experiences, with all the smells, sounds, sensations and emotions of being right there. They are by turns fascinating and frightening, endearing and bittersweet, humorous, humiliating, and always engrossing.