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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
Back in July I started seeing reviews of Smacked every where, so decided to give it a listen on a long ten hour drive. It was the perfect book to hold my interest and keep me fully engaged. In Smacked, author Eilene Zimmerman tells the sad story of her ex-husbands descent into hard-core drug use over the course of many years including most of their marriage. Even though all the signs were there, Zimmerman couldn’t really see the extent of her ex’s addictions until after she found him dead on his bathroom floor.
I’d just finished reading The Boys’ Club by Erica Katz and was struck by the parallels of how her fictional attorneys and Zimmerman’s real-life attorney husband first turned to drugs like adderall and cocaine to sharpen their thinking and get them through the days. Of course, her ex fell much further, going deeper and deeper into drugs while losing touch with most everyone he really cared about. I especially liked the end of Smacked where Zimmerman shared some of the alarming statistics about white-collar drug use in America today. Hers was an eye-opening memoir that is well worth adding to your nonfiction TBR list.
Narration: Author Eilene Zimmerman did a fabulous job telling her own tragic story. Her voice was smooth and quite easy to listen to and that certainly isn’t always the case when authors read their own works.
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/august-audiobook-reviews-three-very-different-listens/
I’d just finished reading The Boys’ Club by Erica Katz and was struck by the parallels of how her fictional attorneys and Zimmerman’s real-life attorney husband first turned to drugs like adderall and cocaine to sharpen their thinking and get them through the days. Of course, her ex fell much further, going deeper and deeper into drugs while losing touch with most everyone he really cared about. I especially liked the end of Smacked where Zimmerman shared some of the alarming statistics about white-collar drug use in America today. Hers was an eye-opening memoir that is well worth adding to your nonfiction TBR list.
Narration: Author Eilene Zimmerman did a fabulous job telling her own tragic story. Her voice was smooth and quite easy to listen to and that certainly isn’t always the case when authors read their own works.
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/august-audiobook-reviews-three-very-different-listens/
informative
medium-paced
“There is so much I didn’t see, or didn’t want to see.”
In this memoir, Eilene Zimmerman tells the story of her ex-husband Peter’s secret, one she learns of only after his death. She gives details of their courtship, marriage, careers, parenthood, and divorce. Then tells of her discoveries after his death and what she failed to see - all pointing to our stereotypes and lack of understanding about drug abuse and addiction in elite circles.
Zimmerman delivers facts seamlessly with the narrative, traveling from present knowledge to past thoughts and experiences. It was easy to track both and helpful to have the facts shared at the relevant time. The latter half of the book focuses more on the alarming rates of addiction and drug use, plus the underlying reasons from studies and anecdotal evidence. People abuse drugs for these top three reasons, “to manage physical pain, to manage emotional and psychiatric distress, and to manage stress.”
This book was easy to read because of great writing and difficult to read because of the tragedy of death and family pain. I had physical reactions while I read including many tears. Still, I am glad I read it. One section that stuck out to me from the book follows.
“Some of the professionals I interview know they have a drug problem but aren’t seeking help. Many are in recovery, and others use but feel they don’t have a problem. For the latter group, drugs are simply a hack – a shortcut – a way to be more productive, more focused, less depressed, less anxious, more chill, more social, less bored, more creative, just better, without having to go through the uncomfortable process of self examination and self reflection. Without having to, for example, get more sleep, eat healthier, meditate, spend time with family and friends, get a psychiatric evaluation and treatment. Those things take time, and time is one thing many of those in this group feel is in short supply.”
Surely we have the time.
In this memoir, Eilene Zimmerman tells the story of her ex-husband Peter’s secret, one she learns of only after his death. She gives details of their courtship, marriage, careers, parenthood, and divorce. Then tells of her discoveries after his death and what she failed to see - all pointing to our stereotypes and lack of understanding about drug abuse and addiction in elite circles.
Zimmerman delivers facts seamlessly with the narrative, traveling from present knowledge to past thoughts and experiences. It was easy to track both and helpful to have the facts shared at the relevant time. The latter half of the book focuses more on the alarming rates of addiction and drug use, plus the underlying reasons from studies and anecdotal evidence. People abuse drugs for these top three reasons, “to manage physical pain, to manage emotional and psychiatric distress, and to manage stress.”
This book was easy to read because of great writing and difficult to read because of the tragedy of death and family pain. I had physical reactions while I read including many tears. Still, I am glad I read it. One section that stuck out to me from the book follows.
“Some of the professionals I interview know they have a drug problem but aren’t seeking help. Many are in recovery, and others use but feel they don’t have a problem. For the latter group, drugs are simply a hack – a shortcut – a way to be more productive, more focused, less depressed, less anxious, more chill, more social, less bored, more creative, just better, without having to go through the uncomfortable process of self examination and self reflection. Without having to, for example, get more sleep, eat healthier, meditate, spend time with family and friends, get a psychiatric evaluation and treatment. Those things take time, and time is one thing many of those in this group feel is in short supply.”
Surely we have the time.
an incredibly quick read. i do wish she had fleshed out peter a bit more, seeing as her love was him was mostly said, not shown. i thought the part where she slowly realizes how peter was an addict, and the struggle to grasp reality, was really powerful. the research based part isn’t really my cup of tea (more motivated by personal accounts), but the section about gen z and how they’ll grapple with being in white collar jobs was fascinating to think about
This book must have been hard to write, and even harder to live through. Addiction is a beast.
3.5 stars. I enjoyed this personal story of one family's tragedy and experience with the epidemic that is opioid addiction. I thought the view of drug addiction as it relates to white collar jobs was really interesting. The personal parts of the story in the first half of the book were definitely interesting and took courage and vulnerability to write. However, I was more drawn to the second half of the book which was heavily fact and research based. Overall, an important and timely story.
My review can be found at www.simplysummerstreet.com
This was un-putdownable for me.
This was un-putdownable for me.
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
This book was heartbreaking and I feel bad criticizing an author's personal story but... She spends the first part of the book talking about how she blindly followed this guy around through this miserable marriage, cites one Saturday morning as an example of how he's a perfect father, then catalogs his downfall into drugs without actually knowing where or when it started. Peter is an asshole, he was one before cocaine and whatever else he was doing, her mourning him... I mean I get she loved him and he was the father of her kids, but he was awful to her and it seems disproportionate. She's all over the place with the causes, stress, the legal profession, prescriptions... And then in one sentence admits 40-60% of addiction is biological.
I kept waiting to read more about what she discovered about how Peter first got addicted. Nothing. I also couldn't believe his family wasn't told the truth about the cause of death.
I kept waiting to read more about what she discovered about how Peter first got addicted. Nothing. I also couldn't believe his family wasn't told the truth about the cause of death.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad