Written by Bernie Weisz Historian Pembroke Pines, Florida e mail address: [email protected] Dec. 12, 2008 Title of Review: "A Never Ending War Story!" This 30 page book took me a half hour to read,of which I unfortunately found to be morbid and very depressing! I got the feeling I was at a "Narcotic's Anonymous" meeting listening to the speaker talk about "war stories" (their "drugalog" about the how, when, where and why of their particular story of drug abuse) with only the last 2 paqes devoted to recovery. This author, Caroline Polk-Palmer, states on the back dust cover "Life is truly not your own, especially when abuse, prostitution and drugs become a way of life. I wrote this book to give courage and hope to others who are currently going through the same pain that I had in the past. I want my book to be a lantern that will help light the path to balance, spiritual peace and higher self esteem". However, how does she try to give that courage? This answer never comes. Why nobly giving credit to God, Polk only "gets clean" the last two pages, while the rest of the book, from beginning to end, is a running commentary of prostitution, selling and using crack cocaine. Polk simply cannot stop. Arrested multiple times, and having eight children in the midst of crack cocaine use, nothing deters her. Why is crack so addicting? Cynthia Kuhn in her book "Buzzed" insightfully writes: "animal experiments point out how uniquely compelling cocaine can be. If animals (rats or monkeys) learn to press a lever to deliver an intravenous dose of cocaine, they will do so up to three hundred times for a single injection, and if they have free access to cocaine, these animals simply keep taking it until they have seizures. Once scientists realized how powerfully reinforcing cocaine was in this form, they stopped doing these experiments out of concern for animal welfare. While most animals will not voluntarily injest dangerous amounts of alcohol, nicotine, or heroin, they will take cocaine until they kill themselves. Recovering cocaine addicts tell a similar story. Usually the only thing that stops a serious addict during a binge is running out of cocaine. One user described it like this:"If I had a room full of cocaine, I would of kept using it until it was all gone, and I still would have wanted more". This is the exact situation with Polk's book. Nothing stopped her. Trading sex for crack, having crack babies, being arrested, being almost killed by deranged, drug-crazed johns, the drug use goes rampant and unchecked. One ex-addict, who wrote a very interesting memoir, Mr. Steve Hamilton, gives us some insight into the horrible world of addiction and relapse. Hamilton wrote: "Why, you might ask, each time I went into rehab, if my intentions were to really stop doing drugs, to get clean and live a different kind of life, why did I start drugging again as soon as I came out? And it's not just me. Most addicts do exactly the same, nine times out of ten, no matter how sincere the will to change. So what is it then-a kind of collective amnesia or something? Knowing everything I did, having experienced the agony of withdrawal and coming as close to death as I came so many times, why on earth did I keep doing it if I knew what was going to happen? Why? I'll tell you why. It's that small, quiet, repetitive phrase again, coming from far back inside your head, seductive as any siren song. Just one. Just one more.....". I Want My Life Back This book goes through the war stories similarly to Polk's book but devotes more than half of it to workable strategies to combat and defeat the scourge called "addiction". Another author, Drew Pinsky wrote about recovery (which Polk's book is devoid of) the following:"Initial recovery is very difficult. People have powerful cravings, they are repeatedly triggered by reminders of past experiences, and they have to learn to deal with life without the numbing effects of drugs. They face the consequences of addiction:medical problems, family dysfunction, job problems, financial disasters, and legal problems. These issues are often avoided during active addiction, but after treatment, they must be dealt with. Early abstinence is a very stressful time, and people in early recovery are extremely vulnerable to the siren call of the addictive drug. Their brains are still altered by the drug, primed to return to that which controlled them. It is not surprising that so many addicts relapse". See Pinsky's book entitled "When Painkillers Become Dangerous: What Everyone Needs to Know About OxyContin and Other Prescription Drugs". Aside from typographical errors, sentence run-ons, and brevity, there is a story Polk tells of family betrayal, addiction, and while short in description, eventual defeat of the addiction process, which Polk claims she has maintained since December 13, 2002. Polk would have definately benefited with the aid of a coauthor or ghost writer to assist her in her style and technique, which this book is definately lacking. Addiction is a horrible destroyer of everything it touches-families, marraiges, jobs, careers, children, even one's future. We can only hope that of this writing, Polk is still clean today. Even more important, anyone that reads this book will get the message that it can be done with the help of a higher power, as Polk gives full credit to the Lord for this miracle. Caroline Polk-Palmer and anyone else afflicted with the disease of addiction-with the help of a "Higher Power" you can stay clean too! Don't leave before the miracle of "being clean" happens!