Customer Reviews

Moments of Clarity: Voices from the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery

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"You don't understand, no one understands," an addict's mantra, which until Moments of Clarity, was very true.

Mr. Lawford and the contributors in this book fearlessly break the validity of this mantra through the strength of sharing their stories, bringing to life the realness of the disease of addiction and the holds it has on the mother, husband, teenager, employee, and celebrity, forcing them to go against what they know is the "right thing to do."

Each story truly reached deep within and touched my soul, as they not only share their hardships, but proclaim their moment of clarity, and the astonishing changes made in their lives because of that moment. They are all great examples of willingness, and almost anyone can find identification with the feelings, thoughts, adversities, and subsequent moments of clarity as we all face some form of them during our lives on a daily basis.

I would recommend this book to those who have family members suffering with this disease and need to understand the pain and hopelessness felt by those they love. To the addict who is still suffering as they will find the hope they are so desperately seeking and to those who are in recovery as they will be able to experience renewed epiphanies as I did.

Thank you to everyone who courageously contributed to these pages as I know many people will find salvation and peace of mind through your strength.

MOMENTS of CLARITY is one of the most powerful compendiums I have ever had the privilege of reading. And, I say that because I truly feel Chris Lawford's most recent work is a generous gift of its contributors sharing experiential knowledge, humility and honesty meant to help each and every reader.
When reading about the "A-Ha" moments via the trials and tribulations of the famous and not-so-famous -- from Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss, Jamie Lee Curtis and Katey Sagal to former federal inmate DeJuan Verrett and Safe Harbor sober homes founder Velvet Mangan -- hope, courage and willingness are the threads that tie all the stories together. The reader is left with renewed focus and energy to move forward in life and embrace change.
We are all on a path for a better tomorrow. Moments of Clarity is that comprehensive manual that if we put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward, we will get there with dignity, grace and clarity.

Keeping to read over and over...

Enlightening and touching crossroads of life that give me hope and inspiration... Having had a moment of clarity that turned my life around
as an addict in recovery I crave more and Lawford's book packs that wakeup punch.

This book is a collection of proclamations from forty-three people who had hit the bottom of the pitch-black-unforgiving-hideous-abyss... known as addiction. Some are recovering drug addicts... some are recovering alcoholics... some have eating disorders... some have a combination of addictions. Many who bare the dark side of their soul on these pages are famous... but I don't think that's worth mentioning... because that isn't the reason to read this book. Addiction strikes everyone (according to statistics there are over TWENTY-TWO-MILLION ADDICTS JUST IN AMERICA) and most of them are just ordinary people like you and me... and to be frank... people like you and me... are more important to me... than multi-multi-millionaire celebrities. I have been personally affected in my life by the humbling-non-prejudicial-monster known as addiction... when I lost for ten years... the greatest and best friend I ever had in my lifetime... to addiction. To have seen what addiction did to him... is to witness first hand... the strongest of the strong... the proudest... of the proud... a self-made street-fighting success story... not be merely knocked to his knees... but to be laid out... flat on his stomach... on a dirty hotel floor... with a gun in his hand... hiding from the world... a world... that he had dominated. What the author rightly calls "MOMENTS OF CLARITY"... I call "LYING FACE DOWN ON THE STREET OF LIFE... WITH YOUR FACE ENGULFED BY MUD AND BILE... AND BY SUMMONING EVERY LAST OUNCE OF STRENGTH AND DESIRE... TO SOMEHOW... FORCE YOUR UPPER TORSO... UP OUT OF THE MIRE... ON ONE ARM... AND THEN BY UTILIZING EVERY BIT OF FIBER... AND MORAL FORTITUDE... THAT G-D HAS LEFT IN YOUR BODY... YOU REACH UP WITH YOUR OTHER ARM... TOWARD THE SKY... TOWARD THE SUNSHINE... CRYING... I DON'T WANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE... I DON'T WANT TO BE AN ADDICT!"

When my "BEST-FRIEND" bravely reached his bedraggled arm to the sky... I was there. I went with him to the "MUTUAL SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS"... and let me tell you... I learned the loving-beauty and grace... of a hug! I'll never forget the day when my best friend... a Viet Nam era veteran... was clean for about five months... and he got up to "share" his story with the other members of our "ANONYMOUS" meeting. When he was finished... and started to walk back to his seat... one of the members from the sea of our anonymous army... walked straight up to him... and put a giant loving bear hug on him... and said... **WELCOME HOME BROTHER... THE WAR IS OVER!** I had tears streaming down my cheeks... and so did they. That spiritual moment... was OVER FIFTEEN-YEARS-AGO... and yet... it was like yesterday. I wrote a poem for my friend at the beginning of his battle for recovery... that he carried around with him... and still does to this day. He gave this poem to other people who suffer. I've given it to friends... and friends of friends. I am going to include it here... because... in my opinion... that's what this book is all about.


"Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start, in the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart."

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
(Written before 1939)

***READING THESE FEW WORDS BY YEATS INSPIRED THE FOLLOWING POEM! ***


WHEN YOU'VE LOST EVERYTHING THAT IS "YOU"...
OR EVERYTHING DEAR TO YOU...
ANIMATE OR INANIMATE...

WHERE DO YOU GO? ... WHAT DO YOU DO? ...

WHO DO YOU TURN TO? ...

THE THING OR THINGS THAT MADE YOU ... YOU...

WHETHER THE WORLD SAW WHAT IT WAS,
OR IF ONLY DEEP INSIDE THE DARKEST REACHES OF YOUR SOUL,
DID IT EXIST ONLY KNOWN TO YOU...

WHEN YOU FACE DEATH OR TRY TO HOLD ON TO LIFE,
AND THE ENEMY ABOUNDS,
WHERE DO YOU GET THE RESOLVE ... THE STRENGTH TO HOLD ON?..

HOW DO YOU FIGHT BACK?...

WHERE DO YOU FIND THAT SECRET VOICE,
THAT CAN TELL YOU TO HOLD ON,
THAT CONVINCES YOU TO FIGHT BACK,
THAT MAKES YOU BELIEVE YOU DESERVE TO GO ON...

ON THAT DAY YOU TURN DISGUSTEDLY TO A MIRROR,
AFRAID TO SEE... WHAT YOU KNOW YOU'VE BECOME..

OR ON THE DAY THERE IS NO HELP "OUT THERE",
WHERE CAN YOU POSSIBLY GO?....

WHEN YOUR WORLD IS FULL OF ENEMIES AND THE WORST ONE IS YOU,
YOU MUST LOOK SILENTLY WITHIN...

YOU MUST LOOK WITH EYES UNBIASED,
LIKE A STRANGER ON A BUS...

TO SURVIVE YOU GO BACK TO YOUR SECRET PLACE OF STRENGTH,
THAT VAULT WITHIN YOU...
WHERE YOUR COURAGE AND PRIDE RESIDES...

IN THIS PLACE YOU ALONE FACE YOUR SINGULAR TRUTHS...

SOME ARE SO UGLY YOU'RE THANKFUL NO ONE ELSE CAN SEE...

OTHERS ARE SO PURE OF BEAUTY IT'S A WONDERMENT,
ALL HUMANITY CAN'T SEE...

IN HERE, IS WHERE FINAL, SINGULAR, DECISIONS, ARE MADE...

TO FIGHT BACK... GIVE UP... TO LIVE OR TO DIE...

"Where all ladders start, in the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart"


Rick Goldstein
2/28/94

A moment of clarity is that point in time when an addict or alcoholic finally sees, clearly, for the first time, the insanity of his or her behavior. It's that point where you say, as Jim Vance said, "Whatever you say, I will do. I'm done. I got no answers. I got no hope. I got nothing." The wall of denial has been destroyed and the addict finally surrenders. That's the paradox of recovery - when we quit fighting and struggling, we win. But we don't decide when that moment comes, and there's nothing anyone can say or do to bring us to that point. It happens when it happens. "Moments of Clarity" by Christopher Kennedy Lawford is a collection of stories by recovering addicts, some famous, some not, about their moments of clarity.

I didn't think I would get much out of these stories, but after reading one after another by the likes of Alec Baldwin, Kelly McGillis, Steve Earle, Richard Dreyfuss, Martin Sheen and 38 more, it was driven home to me how one particular program of recovery has been proven to work time and time again. It blew my mind that someone as successful as Rudy Tomjanovich felt that he needed to use to deal with his fears and insecurities the same way I did. One common thread to these stories was how us addicts let fear drive our lives even well into recovery - fear of rejection, fear of economic insecurity, fear of failure, fear of living without our beloved substances, a thousand forms of fear. At more than six years of uninterrupted clean time, I'm finally seeing that overcoming my fears without self-medicating will be the key to becoming one of the two percent of recovering people to get twenty years, or the one percent to get thirty.

I feel that "Moments of Clarity" did more for me than a hundred meetings ever could. That's just how good this book is. It got me excited about recovery, and filled me with hope. Recovery doesn't mean a lifetime of boring meetings and no fun. It means finding and fulfilling our true purpose in life and discovering a peace beyond all understanding. After reading "Moments of Clarity", I actually am grateful to be a recovering addict.

"Moments of Clarity" by Christopher Kennedy Lawford has inspired me to write about my own moment, or moments, of clarity. I'm a lot like Robert Downey Jr. I'm allergic to drugs and alcohol. I break out in handcuffs, which, in my case, is usually followed by a long term prison sentence. When I was using, I was only concerned about the effects to my physical health. I didn't realize that I was incrementally losing my self-control and becoming someone I'd never thought I'd be. I was Dr. Jekyll becoming Mr. Hyde the way Robert Louis Stevenson described it: "With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two."

My first moment of clarity occurred before I ran completely off the rails. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, and I knew, I felt, that every good thing in my life was slipping away. I looked over at my sleeping wife and I knew the end was coming and I was going to lose everything. I wanted to stop, but I didn't know how. I had been to treatment and meetings, but I just didn't think it was for me. I was in the late stages of my own terminal uniqueness. So I lay there in the dark under a blanket of fear with impending doom on the horizon. But as soon as my alarm clock sounded, I was off to the races again. Anything I had to do that day, everyday, was second priority to getting high.

Fast forward to Monday, November 6, 2000. I'm surrounded by several police officers after robbing not one, but two banks that day. For some reason, my reaction was to put a gun to my own head. According to one police report, they fired fifteen rounds and hit me four times. I know I shouldn't be telling war stories, but that's what I've got - a war story. I should have died that day. I should have overdosed. I should have been shot to death. I should have blown my own head off. After one week handcuffed to a hospital bed, I'm taken to the county jail where I quickly proceed to slit my wrist, and I still can't die. Through all of this there were no moments of clarity. There was only the fog of the most intense physical, emotional, and spiritual pain I have ever felt. I would much rather die than have to go through that again. And even after all of this, I wanted to get high more than ever. Every cell in my body screamed for drugs, alcohol, anything, even death.

Even though there are plenty of drugs and alcohol in prison, a lot of addicts stop using once they're inside, but pick right back up once they're released. But not me. I never, ever, turned down drugs. From the age of 14 to 34, I used at every opportunity. I must have some sort of built-in radar for detecting drugs. You could drop me in the middle of any decent size city in America, and I could score something within an hour. That either says a lot for my drug seeking abilities, or it says a lot about the failure of our so-called war on drugs. It's probably both.

Anyway, for the next four years in prison, I continued to get high. In prison, I found heroin, fentanyl, Lortab, Clonopin, marijuana, crystal meth, Valium, Xanax, Percocet, Oxycontin, and plenty of alcohol. Alcohol is so easy to make. All I need is a few tomatoes, some sugar, and a slice of bread, and four days later I'm drunk. For obvious reasons, it's not too well tolerated by the prison authorities, so eventually I was busted, and locked up in a holding cell in the lieutenant's office. That's where I finally had my real moment of clarity. I'm four years into a fourteen and a half year federal sentence, in one of the most violent penitentiaries in the Bureau of Prisons, and I can't stop getting high. I'm sitting in a prison inside a prison, but the most secure prison is the one I've constructed in my own head. I remember staring at that graffiti-marked cinder block wall for four hours and thinking, "Is this how I'm gonna spend the rest of my life?" I'm miles past the point when most people would have stopped. What's next if I don't stop now? There were men in this prison who became homosexuals just to get high. I saw one guy brutally stabbed for not paying a drug debt. I saw another one drink himself to death one night. He started puking blood and didn't stop until he was dead. That's what I have to look forward to if I continue to use. Handcuffs aren't the only thing that come with that allergic reaction.

My drug use was no longer about feeling good or having a good time. It was compulsive, and it was insane. I had reached a point where it was now or never. I had only thought I'd hit bottom before. This time I peered over the edge, into the abyss, and finally surrendered. The drugs weren't my problem. The source of my need for the drugs is the problem. I decided to give the 12 step program 100 percent. What did I have to lose anyway? I had already lost everything, as I knew I would. What I've gained in return is immeasurable.

David Allan Reeves
Author of "Running Away From Me"

Growing up Kennedy didn't spare Christopher the anguish of addiction. Nor has celebrity spared the contributors to this book.

"Moments of Clarity" are those moments when an addict or alcoholic finally comes to terms with the fact that the disease that grips them isn't going to just go away, and is a problem. This book is a collections of memories of their own moment, or moments, of clarity for 43 (mostly) celebrities. The stories are touching, frightening, sad, aggravating and ultimately hopeful and inspiring memoirs. What I appreciated about the book was that I didn't think I needed to suffer from addiction to find personal relevance here. I took notes of such little gems as "self-centeredness was the basis of psychological suffering" from page 94, or "Resentment is such a poisonous emotion ..." on page 194. The anecdotes can inspire even a sober person to their own moment of clarity in other areas of life.

I wondered who would be the market for this book. Based on the stories, I doubt it would inspire many addicts/alcoholics to a moment of clarity. I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in general in the subject of addition and recovery, or anyone with an interest in inspiring stories of personal triumph or of celebrities struggles and victories.

What an incredible book. Having stood at the turning point of chosing life over death, which was waiting for me, I know of the struggle. Anyone who has reached the point of no return and who has had a "Moment of Clarity" can appreciate where this book is coming from. Bravo, my friend.

Claude "Hoot" Hooten
Author of Drunk & Disorderly, again

This book is a terrific testament to the moment addiction and recovery meet for famous people, which helps relate the hope of recovery to all of us.

I am a recovering addict. I spent the last 25 years using just about every drug there is. I finally got into recovery and my counselor suggested reading books on recovery. This book intrigued me as it was stories about people's experiences instead of an instructional how-to book. I didn't realize how much of an eye-opener it would be for me. The stories aren't all famous people. I probably only recognized about half the names. But here are all these famous people with the courage to come forward and share their story. Trust me, Jaime Lee Curtis isn't sharing her story in this book for publicity. Richard Dreyfuss isn't sharing his story because he's trying to make a name for himself. They have more to lose than the average person would by sharing their story. For anyone that's known the despair of addiction, the loneliness and the isolation, you can relate to what these people are saying. It just goes to show that addiction doesn't care how rich and famous you are. Anyone can be affected by this illness. This book helped make me aware to a greater understanding of my issues as a whole and helped me understand that I need to make major life changes. It's not about just stopping the usage. There needs to be a greater change which is what the recovery community and the 12 step program are all about. I am thankful for Mr. Lawford for putting this book together and for all of the people that had the courage to come forward and tell their stories. This book gave me multiple moments of clarity and my only regret is that I can't rate it higher than 5 stars.

It is intriguing to see in this book how many different types of moments of clarity there can be. It is extremely personal but it shows that even in the worse of circumstances, suddenly one can see something differently and decide to change.