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This memoir is a compelling story about a woman who picks up alcohol after twenty-six years of sobriety. And returns to a mental institution to begin her journey back into the beginnings of recovery. The story is a hard look at what goes on internally and externally inside of Dianne as she gives it her all to survive the battle for her life. The fast-paced read is relentless and unforgiving at times, yet it brings you the fragility of the human spirit.
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First off I want to thank the author for reaching out to me asking me to review her book in exchange for my honest review. She sent me an eCopy of the book but unfortunately the formatting was all messed up for me but luckily I was able to find it on Scribd so it all worked out in the end. Also this is going to be a spoilery review so if you are interested in reading it you might want to skip this.
This is the authors memoir about her struggle with alcohol and drugs. The first chapter opens up with her relapse and every chapter after that details the events of each day. Not only does Dianne struggle with addictions but she also has a mental health condition. In this book we get to see 2 very different extremes to how patients are treated. In the first chapter she is hospitalized and treated for the addictions as well as her mental health. They treat her kindly and like a human being. They never make her feel like a burden or like she doesn't matter. But then she is transferred to a facility to specializes in dual diagnosis.
It's at this facility where we get the other end of how patients are cared for. This facility was horrible. They don't follow her medication plan seemingly just giving her whatever they won't to even though they didn't do their own examinations or anything like that. They make her feel like a burden, they act like they don't care and it's like their mentality is how dare you make me do my job. The mistreatment of their patients really pissed me off while reading it. At first I thought it was going to end up being a case of having an unreliable narrator but that is not what happened.
We get some backstory on Dianne throughout the chapters like how she was homeless by the age of 8 and how her first stint in rehab was when she was 19. With each passing chapter which detail each day of Dianne's life in this rehab facility we get to see her become more and more coherent and essentially start taking care of herself since the medical professionals didn't seem capable of doing their jobs.
Like I said this book details from the time she was hospitalized to being transferred to the facility to being released from said facility. 6 days seems like a really fast process and I know that it's an ongoing battle throughout her life which is why I would have liked to get a little bit about what it was like for her once she left that facility. Also this book could have definitely used some more editing. I don't usually mention editing issues but when they are so frequent that it starts taking me out of the story I have to mention it. Also I did struggle a little bit to get through this. It was a bit slow and I felt like I was reading the same thing in each chapter but overall I am glad I agreed to read it.