Breaking Awake

A Reporter's Search for a New Life, and a New World, Through Drugs

By: P.E. Moskowitz

Narrated by: P.E. Moskowitz

From the “talented and impassioned writer” (San Francisco Chronicle) of How to Kill a City, a riveting journey that combines Drug Use for Grown-Ups with How to Do Nothing, as it explores our national mental health and drug use crises while also searching for answers as to how we can find a path to collective healing.

Why are so many of us unhappy, anxious, and without purpose? And how can we get better?

Several years ago, P.E. Moskowitz had a near-death experience, followed by a nervous breakdown. As they willed themselves back to life using a variety of drugs, both prescription and illicit, they started to wonder: Why are so many of us seeking out these types of interventions to deal with our daily reality?

In Breaking Awake, Moskowitz takes us on a kaleidoscopic voyage through our country’s collective mental health collapse, and the drugs we take—from fentanyl to SSRIs, to ketamine to LSD and beyond—to cope with the gnawing bleakness of our present moment. In a cross-country tour of drug use—including the free heroin handed out on the streets of Vancouver, a mom in Chicago who has been on SSRIs since childhood and now can’t live without them, and ravers in Brooklyn taking drugs most people have never heard of to push the limits of human consciousness—Moskowitz questions whether drugs can spark liberation or simply quell the pain of modern life. Is it time to view drugs differently? And can drugs help us envision a better future?

Excellent exploration of mental health narratives through one person's experience

Moscowitz nails the relationship between Americans, mental health, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The book alternates between personal experiences, inquiries into the methods others have used to tackle these topics and the author's own analysis in a very effective way. The entire book reminds me much of conversations I've had with smart friends, and reflects a point of view that is rarely displayed in public or on social media.