My Fair Junkie

June 26, 2017
Dresner, a former stand-up comic and current contributing editor for The Fix, writes about her recovery from drug and alcohol abuse with honesty and irreverent humor. Dresner hit rock bottom when she pulled a knife on her husband while high on OxyContin in 2011. She was charged with domestic violence, sentenced to community service, and was admitted into a chic Hollywood Hills rehab. Dresner’s narration of her messy recovery (she eventually got kicked out of the posh rehab, went on Medicaid, and developed an addiction to Tinder) is interwoven with insights she gains as a recovering addict: “With drugs, you can circumvent all the productive work and fulfilling relationships that you’d normally need in order to have a feeling of wholeness in your life.” While cleaning syringes and human waste off Hollywood Boulevard as part of her community service, Dresner decided to seriously rethink her life. She finds humor in the darkest moments of her addiction and recovery: “Running a women’s sober living is not easy. It’s like herding cats... if the cats were on heroin.” Readers meet Dresner at her worst, but she nevertheless charms throughout her healing. Agent: Peter Steinberg, Foundry Literary + Media.

July 15, 2017
An addict reflects on her long, bumpy road to eventual recovery."Welcome to the mind of an alcoholic addict," writes Dresner in her effortlessly candid and wryly written chronicle of a life hijacked by drugs, booze, and bad behavior. As a noted West Hollywood stand-up comedian and addiction journalist, she handles this complex tale with wit; while a lot of her pain is deflected through her droll tone, there remains an undertone of suffering and debilitating illness. The narrative is refreshingly devoid of overanalysis on her childhood as the daughter of divorced parents who were "well matched in that they both loved to drink and fight." Instead, the author delves directly into the heart of her own personal darkness, a fight with her husband that escalated into a pulled knife, a restraining order, and nights spent "smoking, squatting, and crying on the dark, quiet, ritzy sidewalks of the Hollywood Hills." A vividly described (and short-lived) fifth visit to a rehab facility provided only a temporary fix. Hospital psychiatric holds, wrist cutting, divorce, emotionless sex, community service, and an admitted lack of impulse control collectively contributed to the author's lowest points, which are depressingly abysmal yet illustrate a brutally honest insider's viewpoint into cyclical, interdependent worlds of rehab, relapse, and recovery. In a conversational, self-deprecating tone, Dresner dictates a nonstop barrage of events in which AA meetings and everyday life blur into one another amid the tragic, rhythmic seesawing between inebriation and rickety detoxification. Some shared memories are crisply drawn, others clouded by the haze of chemically induced euphoria. Other chapters are gilded in some rather self-effacing hindsight wisdom: "I guess I am just one of those stubborn assholes who has to burn their house to the ground to realize you shouldn't play with matches." When Dresner finally decided to take getting clean seriously after performing a monthlong court-ordered service sweeping the condoms and syringes off Santa Monica Boulevard, her resolve is palpable. A hard-knocks addiction memoir buoyed with humor and insight.

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August 1, 2017
Dresner starts her deeply personal book at rock bottom, high as a kite and threatening her husband with a knife. She is arrested and sent to a sixth round of rehab. Dresner hasn't met too many drugs she didn't like, and her self-destructive behavior has been a companion for more than 20 years. What makes it any more likely that she'll stay sober after this stint? She's also sentenced to 240 hours of community service in lieu of jail time. While serving her penal labor, she begins to understand the sense of dignity and self-worth associated with hard work, something she has never had to do before. Maybe this time she can finally keep clean. In Dresner's unflinchingly honest, graphic, and darkly comedic account of her life as a junkie and the struggle to come clean, readers will find strength in the humanity of those at their lowest. Dresner brings humility, wit, and sensitivity to a topic many readers are unfamiliar with, and those that are will recognize her truths.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)