Tweaked: A Crystal Meth Memoir

Book excerpt: This candid memoir of addiction and recovery shares an intimate chronicle of life from Midwestern childhood to NYC's drug-fueled underground. Patrick Moore's account of life as a crystal meth addict combines heartbreaking honesty with rare insight and surprising humor. It chronicles a twenty-year trip stretching from Moore's lonely childhood in Iowa to the day he sits, naked, in a Los Angeles rental, hallucinating about psycho-robbers while talking to a possum he's sure is God. Along the way, there are acid trips at the V.F.W., Dexetrim study halls, teeth-grinding nights of dancing and anonymous sex in New York City's hottest eighties clubs. He takes pictures of Andy Warhol, loses friends and lovers, and navigates a Byzantine underworld of cookers, users, club kids, dealers, and colorful characters as intense as the drug itself. Through Patrick's vivid retelling, you'll meet Lee, the glamorous bad boy with a taste for danger; Tony, the tweaker who likes to remove his eyebrows; Ding-Dong, the Depends-wearing, nearly blind housemate; Hisako, the artist and squatter with a fondness for hot plate cooking; "Mother" Judy, the tough, butch rehab counselor who takes no prisoners, and countless others on the road from crystal meth hell to eventual sobriety.