Free Fall: Two Decades of Rock and Roll and Addiction, 1979-1999

Narrated by the author and the first of a two-book series, Free Fall is a true-life musical memoir; not about how one gets better, but how one gets sick and doesn't notice. The astonishing account of escaping addiction and rebuilding a life is shared in the second book of this series, Falling Up.

Here, a grieving child becomes a legally emancipated teenage runaway and pursues a rock and roll dream–and gets close. Ideas of meaning and identity, formed by a bewildered boy soothed only by books, an AM/FM radio, a flimsy record player, and a guitar would ultimately lead a grown man into brokenness. It would just take 20 years of rock 'n' roll adventure; one that was frequently brave and doomed from the start. Free Fall is driven by a piece of bad luck: There were reasons to believe.

Included within the audiobook are 21 original songs, written and recorded during the same time period, each song with its own writer's note. Each produced by a man hurtling towards end-stage addiction. By broadening the reader to listener, the music conspires with the book to reveal the unsaid. The music spans from lush ballads to wall-of-sound rockers, to a movie soundtrack pitch, a Christmas song, and a "lost demo" from a dusty cassette.

There is no need to listen to the book in order. The chapters in Free Fall are short, with the introductory sections seeking to illuminate some of the cultural, biological, psychological, and philosophical intersections that can conspire to propel addiction. Simple, bullet point suggestions to help those who suffer are included; often containing sensible metaphors to help untangle addiction's maddening complexities. Chapter One, "Living for a Song" opens the story.

How does a child end up in a box on the streets? When does one "decide" to become a songwriter, painter, dancer, actor, or poet? What cultural and historical conditions shape this call? What beliefs sustain such perilous allegiance to this identity? How can songs this good go nowhere?