In this deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her fifteen-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction.
Growing up
Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends, and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen. The drug allowed her to escape from the pressures to be perfect and suppress all the heavy feelings she couldn’t understand.
Getting honest
This fiercely honest memoir explores how heroin shaped every aspect of her life for the next fifteen years and details the various lies she told herself and others about her drug use. With enormous heart and wisdom, she shows how the shame and stigma surrounding addiction, which fuels denial and deceit, is so often what keeps addicts from getting help. There is no one path to recovery, and for Khar, it was in motherhood that she found the inner strength and self-forgiveness to quit heroin and fight for her life.
“This is a story she needed to tell; and the rest of the country needs to listen.”
New York Times Book Review
Strung Out is a life-affirming story of resilience while also a gripping investigation into the psychology of addiction and why people turn to opioids in the first place.
I read it in a weekend.
My son and I headed to Centralia, WA, to stay with my parents for Thanksgiving weekend. As usual, I do not travel light, especially when traveling by automobile. Along with my laptops, dogs, craft projects, and several changes of my finest and comfiest leisurewear, I also grabbed a stack of books. A gal has to have options, and I want options for everything, including books.
Thursday evening, with a tummy full of turkey and several victorious games of pinochle under my sober belt, I crawled into bed in my childhood room, cuddled up with my two dogs, Roxie and Bella, and opened up Erin Khar’s memoir Strung Out. By the end of chapter one, I was hooked.
Good storytellers mesmerize me.
In a world where everyone can (and almost has) publish a memoir, the excellent storytellers stand out and create a reading environment that keeps you coming back for more, page after page. I finished her story in two nights and still wanted more. Khar’s writing style is effortless, and her story has real grit. Time spent in cold church basements sitting on hard metal chairs has taught me two things. Layers are everything; always listen for the similarities in someone else’s story. I didn’t have to listen too hard to identify with her heartbreaking stories.
Khar attributes a significant reason for getting and staying sober to becoming a mother. Ultimately, I got sober for the same main reason. While her strung-out escapades from the early age of 13 stretched to her late 20s, I’m always more interested in reading about what happens after putting down the bottle and the drug. With 15+ years of sitting in church basements, podcasts, movies, TV series, and other memoirs, I’ve heard enough “drunkalogues” to last me a lifetime. Tell me how you got well. Khar does that in a genuine and very vulnerable way.
The Sobees #QUITLIT Score: 4.5 out of 5
Sober Curator Pro Tip: This quote by Khar immediately reminded me of my life-long theme song. If Khar and I were besties, I could imagine us driving around the Hollywood hills in my gunmetal gray 4-door Jeep Wrangler with the top off. Our handsome sons would be in the backseat, rolling their eyes and blasting this song while singing from the tops of our sober lungs. That’s the true sign when you love a book and feel like you’ve become friends with the author.
Check out these videos with Erin Khar
#QUITLIT: Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. #QUITLIT is our curated list of addiction and recovery book reviews. From addiction and recovery memoirs to fiction and self-help, we believe all Sober Curators should be well-read. You can also find us on Goodreads here.
What’s on your nightstand? We want to hear about what you’re reading right now and the addiction and recovery books you can’t live without. Email us at thesobercurator@gmail.com
