Question: Who is the intended audience?
Answer: The book is intended for absolutely everyone because addiction affects us all. You can’t turn around without bumping into someone who either is addicted, or knows someone who is addicted or has addiction in their family or workplace, their church, their circle of friends, etc.

Q: What is the book about?
A: The book is chock full of information with the latest news on addiction by leading addiction researchers. It also includes advice from parents to other parents on living with an addicted child. The book has a special section on the teen brain, how to perform an intervention, what signs to look for if you think your child is addicted, and so much more.

Q: Why am I the best person to write this book?
A: Because I have lived with, and lost, a person suffering from the disease of addiction.

I lost my own beloved, 31-year-old son who was a Paramedic and an RN, who suffered from this disease for 14 years.

I belong to two grief support sites where I share information with other affected families and I have interviewed many people on how they’ve handled this situation. I also am a member of the parent advisory board of the Partnership For a Drug-Free America.

Q: How is this book different from other books on this topic?
A: This book is unique because it includes interviews by leading addiction researchers, a Florida state representative, interviews with people involved in the methadone fight.

It tells about the latest ways to get high and includes slang terms for street drugs that parents need to know and keep their ears open for.

It has a chapter on “cheese,” another new way to get high that many parents are not aware of, how heroin is making a comeback and how the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs is actually killing more people than illicit drugs.

It has advice from parents to other parents on how to cope. It has a chapter on “enabling” and signs to look for if you suspect your child of using drugs. There is also a place for a parent and child to sign a pledge not to do drugs and for the parent to pledge to do all that is possible to prevent their child from using drugs. There is even more.

This is not a pedantic, scholarly book. It is written in easy to read language.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about this book?
A: This book is a sequel to my first book I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction) which was published in October, 2006.

Included in this book is a reprint of the narrative called I Am Your Disease by the Anonymous Addict in which Heiko Ganzer, LCSW-R, CASAC, CH, tells how difficult it is to beat addiction. His protagonist is the “disease” who explains, as if he were a real person, in chilling and compelling language just what a stranglehold addiction has on people and how it isn’t that simple to just stop.

The book also includes excerpts from 40 stories from I Am Your Disease, in which parents pour their hearts out and bare their souls, telling of the anguish of living with an addicted person, and the ultimate heartbreak of losing that person to this insidious disease.

All three of my books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my website. I Am Your Disease is also available as an e-book on Booklocker where this book, Slaying the Addiction Monster, will soon be available also.