The Struggle

KIRKUS REVIEWS - "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."

Booklife - ""Truth be told, I was excited to see what was waiting for me on the other side," Storm writes in the first chapter of this unflinching yet hopeful memoir of facing addiction. Before Storm, ten years sober at publication time, could choose to live and dedicate himself to the hard work of sobriety, he faced death itself, willingly, with a chilling sense of ceremony. That harrowing opening chapter recounts, with detail worthy of a noir novel, the thieving, multiple drug transactions, and curious excitement of the January night that Storm tried to die on the train tracks in Northeast Philadelphia-and how he was jolted back by an ex's out-of-the-blue effort to contact him. The book that follows reveals how he got to that point, what happened next, his AA journey, and how, a little over a decade later, he's found purpose in helping others who are facing similar demons.

Despite the title, there's excitement and wit here, too. Writing with crisp clarity and power, plus an eye for the telling detail...Tense confrontations, dope-sick sweats, HIV scares, a murder, lost time with loved ones: The Struggle lays out its tragedies and miseries without a sense of romance or braggadocio, instead relating the facts (as Storm recalls them) in prose that moves quickly and never suggests self-pity. Material about AA and recovery proves as compelling as the dark stuff, and the everyday victories in the final chapters-marriage, home ownership, a degree-are especially moving.

Takeaway: This searing but wise account of addiction and recovery inspires as much as it harrows."