A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Main Characters: James, Leonard, Lilly, Miles, Hank
Setting: A Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation facility
Main theme: How a person deals with drug and alcohol addiction while in an institution
Summary Chapter 1-5:
The book opens with the narrator, James, waking up on an airplane. He is bleeding, missing four teeth, and has a broken nose. He doesn't know how he got these injuries or where he is going. They tell him that a concerned friend of his contacted them and that his injuries were the result of a fall down a fire escape. James has no recollection of this. James's parents and brother drive him to a rehabilitation clinic. James has three roommatesLarry, Warren, and John. James believes that it's better if no one gets too close to him, since he views himself as a destructive, damaging force with very little to contribute to anyone's life. He is convinced that believing in AA is just exchanging one addiction for another. He embarks on his journey in rehab, always thinking at anytime that he will be leaving because rehab is not for him'. Not a good start seeing how badly he needs some kind of help.
Summary Chapter 6-10:
James's brother Bob and two friends, Julie and Kirk, come to visit him at the clinic. They bring him presents: cigarettes, chocolate, clothes, and books. They watch some football together and then go for a walk in the woods, where they meet Lilly and her grandmother. Bob, Julie, and Kirk urge James to try and get better and give him a list of people who have asked about him. Lilly is a girl that James meets in the clinic although he has little to no contact with her besides fleeting visits that they chance every here and there. The next day James's new job is making coffee for the group, a clear sign that he has progressed and moved further up the clinic ladder. James's psychology test results reveal that he is highly intelligent and angry and has low self-esteem. Joanne, (his therapist) tries to convince him to accept the Twelve Step program, which is solely accountable for the success rate of the facility, but James refuses.
Summary Chapter 11-15:
Joanne and James talk about the Twelve Step program. James still refuses to follow it. He hints that he does not like churches and priests.
After a basketball game, four kids, Andrew Jackson, Tyrone Mills, Robert Washington and B.J. Carson, celebrate a win by going out drinking and driving. Andrew lost control of his car and crashed into a retaining wall on I-75. Andy, Tyrone, and B.J. escaped from the four-door Chevy right after the accident. Teen basketball star and Hazelwood high team captain was sitting in the passenger's side with his feet on the dashboard. When the crash happened, his feet went through the windshield and he was unable to escape. The gas tank then exploded and burned Robbie to death while the three unharmed kids tried to save him.
Today, one out of every thirteen adults abuse alcohol or are alcoholics. That means nearly thirteen million Americans have a drinking problem. (www.niaaa.nih.gov) This topic offers a broad range of ideas to be researched within the psychological field. For this particular project, the topic of alcoholism and the psychological effects on people best fit the criteria. Alcoholism is defined as a disorder characterized by the excessive consumption of and dependence on alcoholic beverages, leading to physical and psychological harm and impaired social and vocational functioning. (www.dictionary.com) Through this project, the most important information regarding personal experiences dealing with alcoholism will be revealed. Not only are statistics, like the facts mentioned before, important when dealing with an issue such as alcoholism, but personal accounts and information are often more powerful and influential evidence. Non-alcoholics should be allowed to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for research purposes.
This book is told from the diary of the main character, Sam Gribley. Sam is a boy full of determination. He didn’t give up and go home like everyone thought he would. He is strong of mind. After the first night in the freezing rain, with no fire and no food, he still went on. He is a born survivor. He lasted the winter, through storms, hunger, and loneliness, and came out on top even when everyone expected him to fail. “The land is no place for a Gribley” p. 9
I can relate this book to a very good friend of mine that got caught up in a bad situation. I’ll use the name “Bob”. We live in the small town of Cape May, NJ and everyone knows everyone. Not always the best situation for people like Bob. He and I became friends before any of these awful things started to happen. Bob got caught up in the wrong crowd one summer and begandealing cocaine. At the time I was un- aware of this. I began to notice a change in him around the middle of the summer, I asked him if there was anything wrong or if I could do anything for him. Bob wouldn’t tell me what was going on, he said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Another reason I’ve found in my opinion that AA is so cult like is because of what the “Big Book” teaches, as well as what the big book means to its members. At one point of the book, chap...
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver Six thousand years ago in Northern Europe, a teenager named Torak woke up with his shoulder throbbing in pain. His father lies next to him, bleeding from an open wound. The two have been attacked by an enormous demon bear, which is bound to come back at any moment. As he bleeds out, Torak’s father can only bear to say a few more words. He says that the demon bear will only grow stronger with each kill it makes, and he also tells Torak that he has to go to the Mountain of the World Spirit in order to defeat the bear.
As illustrated the model of drug abuse and the theories behind addiction are varied. There is no concrete reason for one person who drinks to become alcohol dependent versus the person who does not. Several factors contribute to why a person begins drinking and why they continue to do so despite reasons to stop. The case history exhibits a client with many risk factors associated with alcohol use and dependence.
I read the book Lonesome Howl, which is a drama book and a love story. The book was about two main character whose names are Jake and Lucy. They lived with their family in two different farms, but in the same community besides a mountain covered in a big wicked forest where many rumors took place. The farmers around the place lost many sheep’s since a feral beast. It was a quite small community and a lot of tales was told about it to make it even more interesting. Lucy was 16 years old and lived with her strict father and a coward of mom who didn’t dare to stand up for her daughter when she were being mistreated and slapped around by her father. Lucy was a retired and quite teenager because of that. She had a younger brother whose name was Peter. Peter was being bullied in school and couldn’t read since the education of Peter was different compare too Lucy’s. She helped him in school and stood up for the mean bullies, although all she got in return was him talking bullshit about her with their cruel dad which resulted with her getting thrash.
Coming into the substance abuse meeting the student nurse was scared and nervous. She was scared of the reaction of the consumers and feared all the stereotypes she heard about typical alcoholics. Innervison gave the student nurse a new outlook on these types of consumers. She no longer looked at them as people who were just drunks and wanted to use AA as an excuse to make it seem like they are getting help. She never really looked at alcoholism as a true addiction; it seemed like more of an excuse to escape life’s problems. Sitting in and listening to these consumers gave the student nurse a dose of reality. The student nurse now understands alcoholism better and AA helped her realize recovery is truly a process that takes one day and one step at a time.
Jonathan Kozol's book, Amazing Grace, analyzes the lives of the people living in the dilapidated district of South Bronx, New York. Kozol spends time touring the streets with children, talking to parents, and discussing the appalling living conditions and safety concerns that plague the residents in the inner cities of New York. In great detail, he describes the harsh lifestyles that the poverty stricken families are forced into; day in and day out. Disease, hunger, crime, and drugs are of the few everyday problems that the people in Kozol's book face; however, many of these people continue to maintain a very religious and positive outlook on life. Jonathan Kozol's investigation on the lifestyle of these people, shows the side to poverty that most of the privileged class in America does not get to see. Kozol wishes to persuade the readers to sympathize with his book and consider the condition in which these people live. The inequality issues mentioned are major factors in affecting the main concerns of Kozol: educational problems, healthcare obstacles, and the everyday struggles of a South Bronx child.
Because of the parties he attends with his new friends he has tried using some drugs. These new friends help Charlie see things with a positive perspective, and to be confident in himself. When his friends move away, Charlie experience isolation and has a mental crisis that leads him to be internalized in a clinic.
James and his friends planned to go shoot up his house tomorrow night. That night he staying up and starting thinking about how he felt when his mom died and it made him even more pissed off. The next morning he was already, he got his gun and everything he needed to do what he needed get for his mission to get revenge. They all went to school that day so that way they will have an alibi if, that police came to their door also there was a dance that night too. They got tickets for the dance, they were going to go in his friend's car to the dance check into the dance and sneak out of the bathroom window and leave. Throughout the school day James was nervous and started to second guessing himself, all day was thinking about it. Hearing the gunshots in his mind seeing the guys body laying their. The time was coming close, he was getting ready to go to the dance, he was in the shower thinking about how guilty he was going to fill and what if he gets caught by the police? Will he go to prison? How will he take care of his little brothers and sisters? He starting thinking about all the responsibility he has and all the consequences that he will have to face when he does or if he does get
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
Everitt, B. Robbins, T. (1999) Drug addiction: bad habits add up. Macmillian Magazines, volume 389, pg 567-570.
Nagle, Jeanne. Everything You Need to Know About Drug Addiction. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2012.