The Heroin Addict's Mother
a memoir in poetry
By Miriam Greenspan
An Invitation to the Reader
The great poet Carolyn Forche, who pioneered the “Poetry of Witness” and, in her book Against Forgetting, compiled poems of witness to war, torture, exile, and political repression in the 20th century, has said: “When we read the poem as witness, we are marked by it, and become ourselves witnesses…”I invite you, as reader of The Heroin Addict’s Mother to bear witness to the war, torture, and exile that is the epidemic of opiate and drug addiction in our country and around the world. And to bear witness to the possibility of hope.
Since 2006, when my precious daughter first succumbed to the lure of heroin, approximately one million men, women and children have died of drug addiction. Millions more lead lives of unimaginable desperation and despair.
This the silent epidemic within the flagrant Covid pandemic, advancing each year with the addition of the new, more deadly, mass-produced variants of heroin: fentanyl and carfentanyl. The virus of drug addiction has no limits. It is not bound by age, race, class, gender, ethnicity, culture, or nation. It is the Grim Reaper that, left untreated, kills its host and destroys families. Like a war faraway, only much more deadly, and here on our own shores, drug overdose is the leading killer of young people in our time—treated with woefully inadequate attention and resources by successive administrations of the U.S. government for the past 15 years. In 2019, nearly 72,000 Americans died of drug overdose. These death rates remain higher than the peak yearly death totals ever recorded for car accidents, guns, or AIDS. And still climbing.
I invite you to read The Heroin Addict’s Mother as a memoir of witness to the opiate epidemic’s effect on one daughter, one mother, one family. And to become, yourself, a witness. In honor of those who have survived and recovered, as well as those who have died.
If you are lucky enough to know little about this scourge first hand, may this book serve as education. To those who walk down this road, know that you are not alone. May this book serve as companion, consolation, and hope.
With love and hope,
Miriam
About The Heroin Addict's Mother
Out of the maelstrom of a daughter’s heroin addiction come these gripping poems of love and powerlessness, tenacity and surrender, brokenness and resilience. In The Heroin Addict’s Mother, Miriam Greenspan, eminent psychologist and author of the bestselling Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair, offers an intimate memoir that serves as a poetry of witness to the opiate epidemic that is ravaging millions of families throughout the United States.
About Miriam
Miriam Greenspan, M.Ed., LMHC, is an internationally renowned psychotherapist, author, speaker, poet, and workshop leader, honored as a “feminist foremother” in psychology. Her pioneering book, A New Approach to Women & Therapy, helped define the field of feminist therapy. Healing Through the Dark Emotions: the wisdom of grief, fear, and despair, a Boston Globe bestseller, won the 2004 gold Nautilus Book Award in self-help/psychology for “books that make a contribution to conscious living and positive social change.” It has been praised by Brene Brown, Harriet Lerner, Harold Kushner, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Dr. Christiane Northrup, among other cultural luminaries. Miriam’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including The Sun, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Spirituality & Health, Shambhala Sun, Ms., Psychotherapy Networker, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
The Heroin Addict’s Mother is her first book of poetry.
VISIT MY OTHER WEBSITE www.miriamgreenspan.com
