


With grit, humor, and brutal honesty, David's story exposes the danger in traditional recovery models: they actually increase stigma and the risk of overdose, relapse, and death. Over the next thirteen years, he went from one relapse to the next, drowning in guilt, shame, and secrets, until he finally found an evidence-based treatment that not only saved his life, but helped him thrive. He saw his drug use as a symptom of depression, but the experts insisted that addiction was the problem. By age nineteen, he'd been through medical detox, inpatient rehab, twelve-step programs, and a halfway house.

In his groundbreaking memoir, The Weight of Air, David chronicles his struggle to overcome mental illness and addiction. More than a decade in a double life fueled by depression and heroin. He needed to be sure he could pull the trigger with a shotgun barrel in his mouth. While his wife and two-year-old daughter watched TV in the living room, David Poses was in the kitchen, measuring the distance from his index finger to his armpit.
