The Tug Is the Drug


Book Description

These thirty stories take readers from leaping makos near the fairways of Torrey Pines to midnight Atlantic salmon fishing on the fabled Ponoi to encounters with very friendly mujeres on the streets of Havana . . . and even offer an unauthorized (yet unequivocal) account of Bob Dylan's 1970s obsession with fishing. Santella's peripatetic lifestyle




Wrestling with Pigs


Book Description

A Tale of Bayou drug smuggling The mystery begins when a barge and tug appear one morning, seemingly abandoned, at a remote shipyard on a South Louisiana bayou. Oddly, there are three national flags on board, but its owner and crew have vanished. The suspense builds when Louisiana State Police narcotics agents find fifteen tons of oil and water soaked marijuana in the hold. They quickly learn it is just the damaged dregs of the single largest importation of drugs in the history of the United States. Wrestling with Pigs is a novel about smugglers, cops and corruption on the Cajun coast. Based on real events, this authentic story provides humorous, and sometimes graphic insight into police life complete with complex and flawed characters. It gives a gritty, and in-the-trenches look at the lucrative Central American-originating drug smuggling operations of the 80's and how U.S. law enforcement struggled to combat it. Political insights revealed may just change the reader's perception of organizational leadership inside police agencies and their bureaucracies.




Death in Mud Lick


Book Description

A New York Times Critics’ Top Ten Book of the Year * 2021 Edgar Award Winner Best Fact Crime * A Lit Hub Best Book of The Year From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, a “powerful,” (The New York Times) urgent, and heartbreaking account of the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns, decimating communities. In a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, 12 million opioid pain pills were distributed in just three years to a town with a population of 382 people. One woman, after losing her brother to overdose, was desperate for justice. Debbie Preece’s fight for accountability for her brother’s death took her well beyond the Sav-Rite Pharmacy in coal country, ultimately leading to three of the biggest drug wholesalers in the country. She was joined by a crusading lawyer and by local journalist, Eric Eyre, who uncovered a massive opioid pill-dumping scandal that shook the foundation of America’s largest drug companies—and won him a Pulitzer Prize. Part Erin Brockovich, part Spotlight, Death in Mud Lick details the clandestine meetings with whistleblowers; a court fight to unseal filings that the drug distributors tried to keep hidden, a push to secure the DEA pill-shipment data, and the fallout after Eyre’s local paper, the Gazette-Mail, the smallest newspaper ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, broke the story. Eyre follows the opioid shipments into individual counties, pharmacies, and homes in West Virginia and explains how thousands of Appalachians got hooked on prescription drugs—resulting in the highest overdose rates in the country. But despite the tragedy, there is also hope as citizens banded together to create positive change—and won. “A product of one reporter’s sustained outrage [and] a searing spotlight on the scope and human cost of corruption and negligence” (The Washington Post) Eric Eyre’s intimate portrayal of a national public health crisis illuminates the shocking pattern of corporate greed and its repercussions for the citizens of West Virginia—and the nation—to this day.




Cain's Book


Book Description

This is the journal of Joe Necchi, a junkie living on a barge that plies the rivers and bays of New York. Joe's world is the half-world of drugs and addicts -- the world of furtive fixes in sordid Harlem apartments, of police pursuits down deserted subway stations. Junk for Necchi, however, is a tool, freely chosen and fully justified; he is Cain, the malcontent, the profligate, the rebel who lives by no one's rules but his own. Like DeQuincey and Baudelaire before him, Trocchi's muse was drugs. But unlike his literary predecessors, in his roman a clef, Trocchi never romanticizes the source of his inspiration. If the experience of heroin, of the "fix," is central to Cain's Book, both its destructive force and the possibilities for creativity it creates are recognized and accepted without apology. "Cain's Book is the classic late-1950s account of heroin addiction. . . . An un-self-forgiving existentialism, rendered with writerly exactness and muscularity, set this novel apart from all others of the genre." -- William S. Burroughs




Before I Let You Go


Book Description

From the author of The Things We Cannot Say, Before I Let You Go explores a hotly divisive topic and asks how far the ties of family love can be stretched before they finally break. “Kelly Rimmer skillfully takes us deep inside a world where love must make choices that logic cannot. Ripped from the headlines and from the heart, Before I Let You Go is an unforgettable novel that will amaze and startle you with its impact and insight.” —Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of The Bookshop at Water’s End “Before I Let You Go is a heartbreaking book about an impossible decision. Kelly Rimmer writes with wisdom and compassion about the relationships between sisters, mother and daughter…. She captures the anguish of addiction, the agonizing conflict between an addict’s best and worst selves. Above all, this is a novel about the deepest love possible.” —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author The 2:00 a.m. call is the first time Lexie Vidler has heard her sister’s voice in years. Annie is a drug addict, a thief, a liar—and in trouble, again. Lexie has always bailed Annie out, given her money, a place to sleep, sent her to every kind of rehab. But this time, she’s not just strung out—she’s pregnant and in premature labor. If she goes to the hospital, she’ll lose custody of her baby—maybe even go to prison. But the alternative is unthinkable. As the weeks unfold, Lexie finds herself caring for her fragile newborn niece while her carefully ordered life is collapsing around her. She’s in danger of losing her job, and her fiancé only has so much patience for Annie’s drama. In court-ordered rehab, Annie attempts to halt her downward spiral by confronting long-buried secrets from the sisters’ childhoods, ghosts that Lexie doesn’t want to face. But will the journey heal Annie, or lead her down a darker path? Don’t miss Kelly Rimmer’s next historical suspense, The Paris Agent, coming July 2023! For more by Kelly Rimmer, look for The Things We Cannot Say Truths I Never Told You The Warsaw Orphan The German Wife




Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die


Book Description

“A lavishly photographed dreambook of the world’s top angling spots” (Men’s Journal) Amateur or expert, every angler dreams of landing “the big one,” but that’s only part of the appeal of fly fishing. Because even when hours pass without a bite, nothing beats the rugged beauty of the surroundings. For both armchair travelers and avid outdoorsmen who may have already started a checklist of their own, Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die maps out the meccas of the fly-fishing world. Through in-depth interviews with the sport’s acknowledged gurus, author Chris Santella goes beyond standard guides to convey the very essence of the recommended locations. Readers can vicariously cast mouse patterns to fifty-pound taimen in the wilds of Mongolia, wrangle with wily permit off the Florida Keys, and match the hatch on Montana’s Armstrong’s Spring Creek. Jardines de la Reina, Cuba (tarpon), the Zhupanova River, Kamchatka (rainbow trout), and the Rio Negro, Brazil (peacock bass) are also included. The fifty essays include a cultural and natural history of each site, along with colorful anecdotes based on the author's and authorities’ experiences. With breath-takingly-beautiful photos of the spots, many by celebrated fly-fishing photographer R. Valentine Atkinson, the book also provides adventurous anglers with enough travel-and-tackle information so that they, too, can start planning excursions to go fish around the globe. Praise for Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die “Santella offers 50 short takes on the ultimate fly-fishing destinations in this beautifully photographed and nicely packaged volume . . . With its elegant descriptions, gorgeous photos and practical information, this book is a dream travel guide for avid fly-fishers.” —Publishers Weekly “Everything dad needs to tackle his next trip.” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram




Red Crew


Book Description

Red Crew is a first-hand account of U.S. Coast Guard anti-smuggling operations during the early years of the nation’s maritime war on drugs. Jim Howe describes his experience as the executive officer of a specialized drug-hunting crew that sailed in then-state-of-the-art “surface effect ships,” a small flotilla of high-speed vessels pressed into the drug war on short notice. In the early 1980s, South Florida and the Caribbean were awash in illicit drugs, with hundreds of smuggling organizations bringing huge loads of marijuana, and later cocaine, into the United States. To fight this epidemic, the Reagan administration led a massive effort to disrupt shore-side gangs while bolstering interdiction activity at sea. To increase the number of days at sea for each surface effect ship, a “multi-crewing” concept was employed, with four teams of sixteen sailors—the Red, Blue, Green, and Gold Crews—rotating among three hulls. Through its first-person narrative, Red Crew offers a rare glimpse into the day-to-day pressures, challenges, failures, and successes of Coast Guard cuttermen as they carried out complex and dangerous missions. Red Crew provides a unique historical view of the early days in the Coast Guard’s war on drugs, and is the only book-length history of the diminutive, one-of-a-kind surface effect ship fleet.




Grass Roots


Book Description

How earnest hippies, frightened parents, suffering patients, and other ordinary Americans went to war over marijuana In the last five years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana. To many, continued progress seems certain. But pot was on a similar trajectory forty years ago, only to encounter a fierce backlash. In Grass Roots, historian Emily Dufton tells the remarkable story of marijuana's crooked path from acceptance to demonization and back again, and of the thousands of grassroots activists who made changing marijuana laws their life's work. During the 1970s, pro-pot campaigners with roots in the counterculture secured the drug's decriminalization in a dozen states. Soon, though, concerned parents began to mobilize; finding a champion in Nancy Reagan, they transformed pot into a national scourge and helped to pave the way for an aggressive war on drugs. Chastened marijuana advocates retooled their message, promoting pot as a medical necessity and eventually declaring legalization a matter of racial justice. For the moment, these activists are succeeding -- but marijuana's history suggests how swiftly another counterrevolution could unfold.




Theory and Practice of Addiction Counseling


Book Description

Theory and Practice of Addiction Counseling by Pamela S. Lassiter and John R. Culbreth brings together contemporary theories of addiction and helps readers connect those theories to practice using a common multicultural case study. Theories covered include motivational interviewing, moral theory, developmental theory, cognitive behavioral theories, attachment theory, and sociological theory. Each chapter focuses on a single theory, describing its basic tenets, philosophical underpinnings, key concepts, and strengths and weaknesses. Each chapter also shows how practitioners using the theory would respond to a common case study, giving readers the opportunity to compare how the different theoretical approaches are applied to client situations. A final chapter discusses approaches to relapse prevention.




A Drug Called You 3


Book Description

Prodigy's life is turned upside down when he loses the light of his life that is Violet. What stands in the way of their union is deeper than the polygamy relationship Prodigy can't seem to step away from. He would have to face demons he's kept buried for years in order for them to be one again. Violet, totally oblivious to the trauma Prodigy faced at the hands of his very own mother and foster parents, believes that Prodigy's unwillingness to change comes from a place of selfishness. Which soon proves to be the furthest thing from the truth. Violet and Prodigy might be on the outs but Bleu and Trouble are getting closer than they've ever been before. There's only one problem; Yvette is still in the mix. While Trouble couldn't care less, Bleu does and refuses to get herself caught up in a situation similar to Violet's. Temptation and desire is at an all time high though, making it hard for Bleu to resist the drug that is Trouble. Especially when he's there for her when a blast from the past resurfaces. The finale of A Drug Called You will tug at your heartstrings. Emotions are high and hearts are broken. At the end of it all, will Prodigy be able to make sacrifices in the name of love? Or will he continue to run from his past, truly losing the best thing that has ever happened to him? Violet has her own set of issues that she needs to come to grips with too. Overcoming her obstacles proves to be challenging but ultimately she begins to see that life without love, isn't living life at all.