American Addict

My name is Brett. I'm a college-educated man who was once a husband of 26 years with two children, three businesses, and a large home with an actual white picket fence. I'm also a drug addict. And I have a tale to tell. It's about the despair of addiction and the absolute certainty that it can be overcome. Recovery is not simply abstinence, but a process of growing up. I spent my entire life searching for the key to long-term sobriety. I would like to share with you what I have learned.

Noah Hansen is the 19-year-old son of the Chief of Police. He risks his life daily with a combination of drug use and dangerous sexual encounters. He is chaotic and impulsive, constantly placing himself in harm's way just to get an adrenaline rush. He has maps of trauma that he keeps hidden and secrets he has never shared. Instead of facing his issues, he buries them.

When Kelsey Owens returns home to Dallas, she is a changed woman. After months of training with Marcus Vorenus, she has more control over her abilities. She’s ready to start her new job, even if it means dealing with the King of All Vampires and his partner, Devinshea Quinn. Her first assignment, however, will force her to face her past. Grayson Sloane is in trouble and she has to find him.

My past was destructive. It haunts my dreams. The moment I embraced my addiction, I knew my life would change dramatically. As the VP of the Houston Defiance MC, my job is to stand tall. Contain the demons clawing from the inside, begging to escape from within. But when I embrace my bloodlust, nothing can tame my wrath. Zero took me in as part of his family-a bond unbreakable. I should care about the no-touch rules. And the fact they are in place on his sister.

A worship disorder: This is how Edward T. Welch views addictions. "Will we worship our own desires or will we worship the true God?" With this lens the author discovers far more in Scripture on addictions than passages on drunkenness. 

Sam Louie grew up torn between cultures as part of a first-generation Chinese immigrant family from Hong Kong living in a predominantly African American neighborhood in the United States. He experienced the duality of existence with the tension of two vastly different worldviews, his identity intertwined with the country he lives in and his ancestral ties. What traditions and cultural beliefs get preserved, what gets discarded, and what gets lost in translation? Beneath it all was the presence of three generations of addiction, trauma, and shame.

My name is Alix and I am addicted to sex. Had been for years. I thought I learned how to live a normal life, but that's the thing about addiction, it creeps back up when you least expect it. There is no one there for me, no one I can turn to for help. Until I'm given a chance to explore a side of myself I'd always kept locked away. I was lost until him. I can't tell you who he is, or why he does the things he's done. All I can say is I hope one day I behave well enough to take off the blindfold and see the man who controls my addiction. My Master.