James Brown - Apology to the Young Addict

ALSO BY JAMES BROWN

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Praise for Apology to the Young Addict

James Brown, already among the best memoirists in America, has surpassed his own high standards in Apology to the Young Addict. This superbly written book is about addiction, yes, but it is equally a book about courage, perseverance, love, desperation, recovery, and healing. More than anything, it is a book that reminds us, again and again, of the power of storytelling. In the pages of this heartbreaking but oddly exhilarating memoir, Brown deploys his narrative skills with precision, grace, complexity, and masterfully controlled intensity of emotion. What a fine piece of work.

TIM OBRIEN

Unflinching and self-reflective... An excellent heartfelt and dark memoir from a writer at the top of his game.

PATRICK ONEIL, Southern California News Group

Riveting... Readers will be drawn in by Browns gritty and intense narrative.

Publishers Weekly

Incredibly powerful and moving while never being sensational or preachy. Readers whove appreciated Mary Karrs and Caroline Knapps memoirs should give James Browns writing a try.

Booklist

A dark yet hope-infused look back at the long-term transformations fueled by an addicts recovery... Memorably well crafted, tight, and searing... A worthy addition to the crowded field of (post) addiction memoirs.

Kirkus Reviews

Apology to the Young Addict does not just breathe new life into addiction writing. It does so with enough grace, heart, and grab-youby-the-throat style to transcend the genre and qualify as genuine literature. These beautiful essays will serve as balm for survivors of the opioid crisis, those still struggling to make it out, and pretty much anyone else trying to stay sane in these insane times. Prosewisewith all due respect to his late namesakeJames Brown has earned his title as the Godfather of Junkie Soul.

JERRY STAHL, author of Permanent Midnight

Apology to the Young Addict may be the closest linguistic facsimile to what its like to be in recovery: haunted, growing old, somehow not yet world-weary, but always a razors breadthone day at a timeaway from chaos. The third panel in Browns masterwork triptych on addiction from youth to sixty accomplishes at last a staggeringly rare mercyon the ghosts of memory, the ravages of disease, the brutal hypocrisies of religion, and finallymost shockinglyon himself.

GINA FRANGELLO, author of Every Kind of Wanting and A Life in Men

The undeniable force of James Browns writing is its ability to concentrate and to distill. His language is pharmaceutical grade, has a devastating purity, and unlike many of the worlds great gritty writersCline, say, or BukowskiBrowns writing makes no romantic claim, finds no virtue in degeneracy, sounds off no beendown-so-long-it-looks-like-up-to-me anthems to lull the reader. This is writing with the compulsive energy of an addict, and it refuses to traffic in bromides. Rarely is writing so hard-won, and rarely are the rewards this powerful.

MICHELLE LATIOLAIS, author of She

In Apology to the Young Addict, James Brown has written a complex illustration of our human flaws and our chances at redemption. Its a book of perspective, empathy, and wisdom for addicts and anyone whos ever loved them. This book will help an enormous number of people.

ROB ROBERGE, author of Liar

Apology to the Young Addict

Copyright 2020 by James Brown

First hardcover edition: 2020

First paperback edition: 2021

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover as follows:

Names: Brown, James, 1957 author.

Title: Apology to the young addict : a memoir / James Brown.

Description: First hardcover edition. | Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2020.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019026311 | ISBN 9781640092860 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781640092877 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Brown, James, 1957 | Brown, James, 1957Family. | AlcoholicsUnited StatesBiography. | Authors, American21st centuryBiography. | Drug addictsRehabilitationUnited States.

Classification: LCC PS3552.R68563 Z46 2020 | DDC 813/.54 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026311

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64009-465-9

Cover design by Sarah Brody

Book design by Jordan Koluch

COUNTERPOINT

2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

Berkeley, CA 94710

www.counterpointpress.com

Printed in the United States of America

10987654321

For Gary

Although this work contains descriptions of people in my life, many of their names and other identifying characteristics have been changed to protect their privacy.

Contents

W hen I think of a junkie, I see a skeleton-thin figure with abscesses up and down their arms, trembling and feverish, looking for that next fix. Or I picture the mug shot of a toothless meth-head with her face pocked with scabs. Life didnt start out this way for them, but their stories are remarkably similar, how they hit bottom, lose everything, and end up living off the streets. No, when I think of an addict, I dont for a second see a middle-class, retired elderly couple with two Subaru hatchbacks parked in the driveway of a quaint cottage in the resort town of Lake Arrowhead. When my wife and I move into the house next door, about two years before their accidents, Freddie welcomes us to the neighborhood with a batch of freshly made chocolate chip cookies. Neddy shakes my hand and tells me that if I need anything, anything, dont hesitate to ask. Over the course of the next few months we learn that they used to run their own real estate business, Freddie & Neddys Mountain Homes, in the nearby town of Skyforest, and that Freddie, in her youth, played on our national volleyball team in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Neddy was a point guard at USC. Theyre a tall couple. Id guess Freddie to be an inch or two shy of six feet, and Neddy an inch or two over that. Id say theyre pushing eighty, and theyre healthy and fit, still going strong. They even invite us to go cross-country skiing when the snows arrive later that year. Its summer when we move in, but Paula and I, were private people, and we politely decline the offer. Besides, we dont know the first thing about skiing.

I like to remember Neddy tending to his rose bushes and tomato plants. I like to remember watching him sweeping his driveway of the pine needles and leaves that fall from the trees of the forest that surrounds his home and mine. I like to remember Freddie working alongside him, dressing up for the occasion in bright yellow culottes and a matching yellow sleeveless blouse. Her long arms are tanned and thin and she always wears a wide-brim gardening hat with a leather chinstrap dangling about her neck. They both wear matching tan suede gloves.