Kerri Kelly - American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal

Copyright 2022 by Kerri Kelly. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books
Huichin, unceded Ohlone land
aka Berkeley, California
Cover design by Jess Morphew
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

American Detox:The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal is sponsored and published by North Atlantic Books, an educational nonprofit based in the unceded Ohlone land Huichin (aka Berkeley, CA), that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publishers Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kelly, Kerri
Title: American detox : wellness in times of injustice and how we heal
ourselves and the world / Kerri Kelly.
Description: Huichin, unceded Ohlone land aka Berkeley, California : North
Atlantic Books, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021057638 (print) | LCCN 2021057639 (ebook) | ISBN
9781623177249 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781623177256 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Social changeUnited States. | Social actionUnited
States. | HopeUnited States.
Classification: LCC HN65 .K45 2022 (print) | LCC HN65 (ebook) | DDC
303.40973dc23/eng/20211201
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021057638
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021057639

Kerri Kelly has written us an intimate, honest, accountable, and thorough invitation into healing with American Detox. We wont heal unless we are willing to let go of colonizing the planet and our own bodies. We wont heal until we face ourselves. With vulnerable storytelling, grounded politics, and guided self-reflection, Kelly shows us a way to move past the capitalist myth of wellness into the possibility of true healing.

adrienne maree brown , writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute whose work focuses on pleasure activism, emergent strategy, visionary fiction, and abolition

We have built a culture of wellness from the masters tools of American capitalism, white supremacist delusion, and disconnection; and yet we continue to wonder why so many of us are deeply unwell. Late poet Audre Lorde told us that the masters tools will not dismantle the masters house. American Detox carries on in this tradition, reminding us that we cannot purchase our way into well-being. It is built of the materials of interconnectedness and belonging, and without them we cant manifest the highest form of wellness which is humanitys wholeness.

Sonya Renee Taylor, author of the New York Times best seller, The Body Is Not an Apology

Kerri Kelly is radically committed to our well-being by teaching us how to be wellwithin ourselves and with one another.

Layla F. Saad, New York Times best-selling author of Me and White Supremacy

Kerri Kelly has done her work. This book is a powerhouse. For anyone who cares deeply and yearns to live a meaningful life, one that yokes your most private moments with public actions and values, this book is a graceful and practical map. Full of research as well as intimate narrative, American Detox shows that how we do something is how we do everything.

Ashley Judd, American actress and political activist

Kerri Kelly models deep solidarity in her being and breath. In the face of violence and terror, Kerri has grieved with me at the sites of massacre, joined her story to mine, and stood with me to hold up a vision of a world where we are all safe and free. Her debut book is a beautifully rendered reckoning with what ails this nation and the medicine we need to heal. American Detox is a blueprint for collective wellness, from an activist and healer who walks the walk with integrity, grace, and a revolutionary love.

Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist and best-selling author of See No Stranger

American Detox is the medicine this country needs right now. Urgent and unflinching, it exposes the structural and interpersonal practices that prevent us all from being well. Whether were looking to change our systems or change ourselves, Kellys words act, guide, and rally us toward the future we deserve.

Nicole Cardoza, founder of Reclamation Ventures, author, and magician

This book offers the reframe that is needed in a culture desperately seeking wellness and perfection while being bankrupt of the remembrance of our inherent wholeness. Thank you, Kerri Kelly, for providing accessible tools to reclaim our well-being.

Tracee Stanley, best-selling author of Radiant Rest

Kerri, with her trademark dedication to fierce and honest self-examination, holds both herself and the culture of wellness accountable for the social dis-ease that continues to segregate health among its diverse citizenry. American Detox disrupts the myth of who gets to be well, exposes the constructs that benefit from people being ill, and provides insights into what needs to be done, individually and collectively, so that ALL beings have access to what they need in order to thrive.

Seane Corn, author of Revolution of the Soul

For many years, Kerri Kelly has been on the front lines of and firmly planted at the intersection of social justice and well-being. American Detox is not only a wake-up call but a call to remember if some of us arent well, none of us are well. This book shares a history of how individualism, competition, supremacy, and superiority have been embedded in the industry of wellness since its inception, and offers a way for us to detox from what no longer serves the collective while inviting us to come back to one another through practices of collective care. It is a must-read for the times in which we live and a guide for a pathway toward healing.

Michelle Johnson, author of Finding Refuge

Kerri is not afraid to ask the hard questions or face difficult truths! American Detox challenges us to examine and confront the systems of injustice that cut us off from our belonging to each other and from our wholeness of spirit. A brilliant call for the reimagining of what it means to be well in our world.

Tara Brach, author of Trusting the Gold

As delicious as green juice is, it will not save us. Compassionate and critical inquiry into the systems that limit access to being well for so many in our world, now, that will. Is the way we do wellness well? In American Detox Kerri Kelly boldly asks us to examine that question in truth and light. She asks us to get curious and to look into personal and collective dark spaces in order to more clearly see how deeply unwell we are. This book is a valiant, brave, and timely compass and tool that we need right now as so many navigate the often wild, predatory, and ailing space of the so-called wellness industry.

Octavia Raheem, founder of Starshine & Clay, a meditation and yoga studio for Black women and women of color, and author of