Pubdate: Mon, 28 Apr 2003
Source: Daily Forty-Niner (CA Edu)
Copyright: 2003 Daily Forty-Niner
Contact:  http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1391
Note: Publication of the California State University, Long Beach
Author:  Jack Schneider

FREY EXPRESSES ADDICTION, RECOVERY IN NEW MEMOIR

Drug and alcohol abuse can be hard on a person's body. Breaking the habit, 
and recovering from years of abuse is even harder. The difficult times of 
going through rehabilitation and alcohol and drug abuse are presented in 
James Frey's memoir titled "A Million Tiny Pieces."

His memoir begins at the tender age of 23 when he wakes up on an airplane. 
His teeth are knocked out, his wallet is missing, and has almost no balance 
while walking off the jet way. After Frey leaves the airport, his parents 
check him in to a rehabilitation center in Minneapolis, in hopes that their 
son will recover safely.

Some readers might think that Frey's recovery from drugs and alcohol is as 
simple as following a 12 step process and the Serenity Prayer, but it is 
nothing compared to the furious amounts of pain he has experienced in 
kicking his habits. In the beginning of his memoir, four of his teeth have 
been knocked out. As he goes through rehab, Frey graphically describes 
getting his cavities filled, and gets a drill pounded into his gums while 
holding on to nothing but tennis balls.

As if there wasn't any other pain besides his teeth, he wakes up every 
morning vomiting, and gets beat up by a patient named Roy after criticizing 
Frey's work on cleaning the toilets. Throughout the book, he explains the 
rocky relationship with his mother and father, and how he goes through 
drastic mood swings with the doctors and the patients in the clinic.

On deciding a way to kick the habit of alcohol and crack (one of the many 
drugs mentioned throughout the book), he decides to fight addiction through 
his own personal force, and not the force of a clinic. He denies the 12 
step rules, and breaks the regulations the clinic has put on him. Fighting 
vigorously to stay away from alcohol showed Frey as a person who knows the 
temptation of heavy drinking, but refuses to give into it.

The writing is designed so that the reader experiences first hand of what 
Frey is thinking, feeling and fighting. Sometimes the emotion is gut 
wrenching while other times the story takes on a sadder and bittersweet 
approach, especially with dealing with his friends and girlfriends.

"A Million Tiny Pieces" is a shocking, and sometimes disturbing look at a 
person whose life has been deteriorated by substance abuse. It is a story 
of struggle and strife, and the hell behind defeating the horrors of 
addiction, while trying to maintain his sanity. Although utterly profane 
and sometimes shocking, Frey's memoir shows that when a person has hit a 
supreme low, there is a self-motivated way to recovery.
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MAP posted-by: Beth