The Struggle

July 1, 2023

Philadelphia native Storm's debut memoir traces his painful path from developing a life-engulfing addiction to drugs and alcohol to finding sobriety. Narrating his own book, Storm describes how he experimented with drugs and alcohol when he was 12 years old to ease his social anxiety. Soon he began smoking marijuana and spending most days selling drugs to his peers and getting drunk and high. Beginning with MDMA, Percocet, cocaine, alcohol, and marijuana, Storm then began using heroin, a drug that destroyed his life. Eventually, through countless fits and starts, soul-crushing sickness, guilt, sorrow, and fear, he was able to find his way out of addiction, working through the 12 steps and forming healthy relationships with others in the recovery community. Storm delivers his story with disarming frankness and warmth. While he mourns his younger self, he also views himself with compassion and extends this grace to everyone around him. He is not a professional narrator, but this is not what the memoir requires; his unvarnished, occasionally rough, but always clear-eyed presentation speaks volumes. VERDICT Tough and brutally honest, Storm's gripping account is timely and deeply affecting. This is an audio that deserves to be heard.--Sarah Hashimoto

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Storm recounts his struggle with alcohol and heroin addiction in this debut recovery memoir. The author writes that he wasn't someone whom most people would expect to become an addict: "I didn't come from a broken home or experience any childhood trauma," he writes early on, adding, "I can't tell you why I became an addict, but I can tell you how I became one." Storm started drinking alcohol when he was 12, he says, to fit in with his peers, and he kept doing so because he found it gave him confidence and a sense of belonging. He soon began smoking marijuana, and he financed this habit with the proceeds of his newspaper route before deciding to sell the stuff himself. He didn't start using hard drugs, including cocaine and Percocet, he says, until his mother died of a brain aneurysm in 2001, when he was 20. Devastated by the loss and without much in the way of ambition outside of a fledgling rap career, Storm quickly descended into the depths of addiction. His life in North Philadelphia was characterized by daily violence and desperate decisions, and it was only by an act of fate, he says, that he managed to pull himself back from the brink. In this work, Storm details how he fell into such a dark place, how he was able to climb back out, and how he's remained clean and sober since 2010. His plainspoken prose is earnest and unadorned, as when he describes a drug buy gone awry: "One of the dealers pulled a gun from behind the step and stuck it in my face....To be honest, I wasn't even shaken up over the incident; I was more concerned with getting high." Storm's spare, matter-of-fact storytelling style is mostly free of melodrama and personal mythmaking. Instead, it effectively captures the arc of addiction and recovery in such a way that even those who haven't struggled with substance abuse may recognize something of themselves in this story. A frank and affecting remembrance of personal struggle and triumph.

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