Descent - Hardcover

Avoy, Donald R

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1932672052 ISBN 13: 9781932672053

Publisher: Outskirts Press, 2004

Synopsis

Chris Childs is an unusually talented young man. A post-doctoral fellow at a prestigious medical center near San Francisco, he is also a gifted musician. It is his music that attracts Erin Leahy to him. The attraction is mutual and powerful. But the man who introduces them was a former rival of Chris and when he learns that he has been replaced in Erin's affection, he is furious. In retaliation he entices her to try a new experience, which she learns, too late, is hehroin. Horrified at first, she succumbs and becomes addicted, unaware of the reason for her unusual susceptibility. She is able to hide her addiction from Chris until she accidentally overdoses and has to be hospitalized. After her release, a struggle is waged between the power of opiate addiction and the medical knowledge that guides its treatment. When Erin relapses and flees, Chris must seek the guidance of a wise man, a pioneer in the use of methadone in the treatment of heroin addiction. The stakes in this struggle could not be higher. Even a momentary lapse may be fatal. The story is a retelling of the ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in the context of a very current, complex, social and medical problem.

About this title

About the Author

Donald Avoy was born in Denver, Colorado where he lived through high school. After three years in the Navy, he returned to attend the University of Colorado. He then attended Stanford University for Medical School and post-doctoral training in Internal Medicine and Hematology. He was in private practice and also served as the director of the local Red Cross blood program. He is currently involved in methadone treatment of heroin addiction in San Jose, California where he lives with his wife Nancy, a high school English teacher. Their six children and seven grandchildren are scattered from coast to coast and into Canada.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When she left Berkeley, Erin had believed that, alone, she would be able to find the strength to resist her craving for heroin. She viewed it as a test of her will, her moral fiber and integrity, in all of which she had great confidence. She believed she would be able to find a solid foundation on which she could make her stand and fight her battle. That had not happened. She had planned to gradually reduce her heroin use until she was free of its torment. She had not anticipated the phenomenon of tolerance. Rather than being able to diminish the amount she was using, her brain continued to escalate the amount it demanded to keep free of the torture of withdrawal symptoms. Every week she had to use larger doses to remain functional enough to work so she could continue to pay for the heroin and her living expenses.

Her salary and tips were inadequate, and she had begun to use her savings, which were disappearing at an alarming, steady rate. In addition to growing panic about finances, there was the vague, shadowy but powerful feeling of helplessness. It was as though she had entered into another dimension in which time and space were thick and disordered. She couldn't move with her customary agility through either. Rather, she found herself slogging through confusing days in which the clock's movement was effectively replaced by her predictable need to fix to avoid suffering.

She was not only immersed in this all-pervasive fluid, she knew that she was slowly, steadily, sinking deeper. She tried to reaffirm her goals and intentions to remove herself from the gel of her prison, but she couldn't even concentrate enough mental focus to do that.

Her memory of Chris was still present and painful, but the pain was less distinct. As the sharp lines of her losses grew hazy, their capacity to inflict the sharp, lancinating bolts of anguish and remorse diminished. More and more of her intellectual capacity was being eroded by her need to focus on her next fix.

She had kept the tapes of his music and played them constantly. They provided the one oasis of spiritual uplift in her existence which was otherwise a desert of deprivation. His music was like a slender tether to her previous life. There were times, after listening to a tape, that she would want to pull on that tether, to contact him, to ask for his protection. But even in her terrible isolation and need, she would not do that.

There were two elements that kept her committed to her isolation. The first was her still strong desire to protect those she loved, knowing that the reality of seeing her in this condition would cause them hideous pain. The other was shame. The revulsion she had always felt toward drug addicts was now turned inward and it was a searing, pitiless beam.

The weeks trudged by in numbing procession, each draining her of more energy, hope and resolve. Each seemed to provide further evidence that she was on a one-way trip to oblivion. While that future held vague terrors, they were no more horrifying than the dehumanizing reality of her present.

Edition details

• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1932672052
• ISBN 13: 9781932672053
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272