Push Down and Turn: Under and Above the Influence

If you’re looking for the typical “getting sober” story, this book isn’t for you. Push Down and Turn takes you on a devastating journey through the emotional hell of narcotic addiction. Starting with a childhood that was certain to end in disaster, Dr. Cole’ story stumbles and collapses, leaving you feeling more like the witness to a crime than the passive observer to his story.

At the time this book was published, prescription painkillers were responsible for the accidental overdose deaths of nearly twenty thousand people a year in the United States, killing over four people an hour. Despite a promising career as a doctor, Dr. Cole was nearly one of these. In this no-holds-barred, hard-hitting memoir, he tells you how he survived.

The only thing more astonishing than the fact that Dr. Cole is still alive is that he is telling you his story at all. In a ruthlessly honest attempt at storytelling, he succeeds in dissecting his own soul for you in a way that will leave you as embarrassed to hate him as you are loathed to love him. You may find yourself in this book—don’t be alarmed. You may laugh inappropriately—don’t be ashamed. This is only one man’s story, one addict’s tale, but it reaches into the heart of every person’s frightened human journey, in all its disturbing disguises.