Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again

When I picked up this book in the library, I had never heard of Dr. Drew Pinsky. It turns out that he is the host of "Strictly Sex with Dr. Drew" on the Discovery Health Channel and the co-host of a radio call-in show, "Loveline," in which Dr. Pinsky helps mostly young adults with relationship, sexuality, and drug problems. The doctor is a board-certified internist and the Medical Director of the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Pasadena's Las Encinas Hospital. "Cracked" is told in the first person (with help from Todd Gold). The doctor discusses the causes of addiction, why it is a chronic disease, and how his professional experiences as an addictionologist have been both rewarding and incredibly frustrating. He also presents some case studies (patients' names and details are disguised to insure privacy) and describes how and why certain individuals improved or failed to benefit from their stay at his treatment facility. Writing in a conversational style, Dr. Pinsky walks the reader through his days and weeks at Las Encinas, where he puts in long hours together with hardworking nurses, counselors, and other dedicated colleagues. When an addict is admitted, he or she is usually severely disoriented and in unbearable pain. The drugs of choice include alcohol, marijuana, Vicodin, Oxycontin, Klonopin, cocaine, heroin, Ecstacy, or a combination of the above. Many of the addicts admitted to Las Encinas were abused by parents or other relatives, and they are unable to trust or make meaningful human connections. When they feel threatened, addicts take drugs to relieve their discomfort and withdraw from reality. In order to help his patients, Dr. Pinsky administers a carefully calibrated dose of medications to aid in detoxification and relieve some of the discomfort that accompanies this brutal process. Only after the patients have completed withdrawal can they begin to do the emotional work that will help them stay sober, one day at a time. "Cracked" is difficult to read because the patients we meet are tremendously vulnerable and self-destructive. Dr. Pinsky admits that he often identifies too closely with his clients (he has "rescue issues"), and he has had to learn to step back in order to do his work more effectively. In the pages of "Cracked," the doctor introduces Amber, a beautiful and tortured woman with an abusive boyfriend, Esther, an elderly alcoholic with emphysema who knows that she is killing herself, and Hector, a long-time heroin user whose father is in prison and whose mother died of a heroin overdose when he was only nine. I recommend "Cracked" for teenagers who are exposed to the drug culture and need an extra push to help them say "no," for drug users and those who care about them, and for anyone who wants to understand the biological and psychological aspects of addiction and recovery. This book is a fascinating and frightening look into a very dark abyss from which few people emerge successfully.

Dr. Drew has put together a great and insightful look into the [real] world of addiction. Other critics here may cite "overdone" statements of sexuality and attractiveness about female patients, but those readers miss the points of manipulation by the addicted brain. Ideas such as these are critical to truly understanding the addicted mind and how the disease warps decisions and interpersonal interaction. Other so-called experts of today, like Dr. Phil, claim you can simply decide to stop addiction; Dr. Drew shows the fallacy of this theory through personal experience and sharing in Cracked. As for the argument of Dr. Drew being bullied by Adam on Loveline, listeners need to understand the dynamic they share. In the short time allotted to solve callers' problems, especially those involving abuse and/or addiction, monitoring interaction between the caller and a quasi-abusive authority figure (Adam) can very effectively indicate past pain. Please don't mistake this for bullying; after all, as much as we love Adam, it's really Drew's show.

Addictions are uniquely crippling because, once the mechanism that mediates happiness is hijacked, what the hell do you have to go by? Logic? That hardly compares. A little background: Eight years ago I was file clerk in the medical records department of a hospital, working the graveyard shift and listening to LoveLine on the radio. I had my share of self-destructive habits at that point, and hung around in a crowd where that was the norm. I found Dr. Drew to be uptight, dry, conservative and opinionated, but I also found Adam to be hysterical and the show to be entertaining enough to keep me listening. Eventually the reality that Dr. Drew presented night after night broke through my defenses and helped me get my act together. Dr. Pinsky is fighting the good fight in his radio show and through his other media ventures. Is this book a GREAT book? No, not great by literary standards, I suppose. But good. And very readable. And, most critically, it is an important book. Dr. Pinsky describes in interviews how he turned the corner on this project when he let himself really pour his heart into it. And it shows. It is a labor of love, and I applaud his effort. And, the show continues to be very entertaining. Adam is still very funny night after night. It's hard to know how many people have been positively affected by the show, but I suspect it's a much larger number than anyone suspects. I hope Adam and Dr. Drew continue on and are not tempted away by other projects and opportunities that will certainly arise.

This book is an excellent account of not only how all kinds of addiction affects people, but also of how society as a whole influences behavior. The format of the book is excellent - it goes into Dr. Pinsky's life, and it touches on almost every type of addiction that he deals with in his medical practice as well as going into the events in the person's life that lead up or created the addiction. If you're a Love Line listener, you'll see almost every noteworthy issue they deal with on the radio addressed in this book in much greater detail. One other thing that's interesting is that Drew speaks of his experience as a medical professional and he includes his interpersonal thoughts along with the treatment of his patients - I think this is the only time I've seen a doctor actual portrayed as a human being discussing his most personal feelings evoked by his work.