I just started reading "A Million Little Pieces" last night. It is an interesting book, easy to read, yet sometimes hard to read what the author has to write. As I'm not (nor have I ever been) an addict- the concepts in this book are hard to grasp. Yet, somehow, his emotions, his fury, his trials and tribulations are all wholly relatively.
"I want a drink. I want fifty drinks. I want a bottle of the purest, strongest, most destructive, most poisonous alcohol on Earth. I want fifty bottles of it. I want crack, dirty and yellow and filled with formaldehyde. I want a pile of powder meth, five hundred hits of acid, a garbage bag filled with mushrooms, a tube of glue bigger than a truck, a pool of gas large enough to drown in. I want something anything whatever however as much as I can." One of the most harrowing sections for me to read is when James willingly submits to major dental surgery without the benefit of anesthesia or painkillers. He fights the mind-blowing waves of "bayonet" pain by digging his fingers into two old tennis balls until his nails crack off. He is strapped down to the dental chair to complete the two root canals. I've had several root canals myself and I cannot begin to fathom what James endured. I don't want to imagine. The saddest part of all, the pain in the dental office is minor compared to the rest of his miserable life. This poem begins the book:
ÂThe Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel.
I broke something, Old Man.
How badly is it broken?
It's in a million little pieces.
I'm afraid I can't help you.
Why?
There's nothing you can do.
Why?
It can't be fixed.
Why?
It's broken beyond repair.
It's in a million little pieces.Â
It's broken beyond repair, I understand that best of all...
