Unhooked

A Mother's Story of Unhitching From the Roller Coaster of Her Son's Addiction

By: Annie Highwater

Narrated by: Janet Gautier

I am the mother of a person in long term recovery from addiction. I'm in recovery as much as my afflicted son is in recovery.

Like many who hear about or personally experience the destructive effects of addiction, it took serious convincing for me to consider it a "disease". In fact, I was pretty self-righteous about it. I told myself, "You don't see a cancer patient or diabetic stealing from the jewelry box of a family member nor damaging the trust of people that love and depend on them." But I didn't have an informed understanding of addiction. I was certain I could outsmart and tough love my son right out of addiction.

Annie Highwater's memoir follows the experiences of one mother who started her own life in a grossly neglected home and came to realize how those experiences both helped and hindered what would be the hardest, most heartbreaking, yet transforming challenge of her life - her son's addiction to opiates.

Annie learns to understand that her own dysfunctional family upbringing influences her reactions. She is a fighter, refuses to give up, and digs deep into her past and does the personal work in her own family dynamic to pave the way for his success. She sets boundaries, enlists resources, and finally moves through her life with determination and acceptance.

As the country struggles to address the issues of the rampant epidemic of opiate abuse and addiction, this story is especially relevant in helping us all understand the personal challenges facing parents and family members and how family dynamics both help and hinder the recovery process.

This is a short, captivating listen designed to inform, comfort, encourage, and help family members searching for their own path of peace and recovery. This book is an interesting, educational listen for those who haven't been close to someone gripped with an addiction; but at this point everyone know someone. Anyone can benefit from her quick, insightful book!

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2016 Mindy Halderman (P)2020 Mindy Halderman

I’d give it 10 STARS if I could!

This book is a lifeline for me. I’ve listened to it three times in a row, back to back. Annie’s story mirrors mine - our 42 year old son is coming out of Treatment in one month- he has been in TEN. Her introduction grabbed me because it exactly describes our son. Annie gives me guidance and hope. She makes me feel normal in my terror laced love for our son. This book EDUCATES me. Thank you so very much for writing it, Annie!!!

Hard to get through.

This was a hard book to get through. I felt like a 5th grade student with the dictionary definitions of words at the beginning of each chapter and the quotes made it feel like the author was trying to hit some word quantity quota. The narrator was slow and over pronounced some words and mispronounced others.