Pain Killer Addict: From Wreckage to Redemption
Cathryn Kemp, 2012
Little, Brown UK
300 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780749958060
Summary
Cathryn Kemp was a successful travel journalist who fell ill with a life-threatening illness. After four years of painful operations and misdiagnoses she was discharged from hospital with a repeat prescription for fentanyl, a painkiller one hundred times stronger than heroin.
Within two years she was taking more than ten times the NHS maximum dosage, all on prescription.
Painkiller Addict: From Wreckage To Redemption is a story of our times; each year more and more prescriptions are written for strong painkillers, sleeping tablets, anti-depressants and tranquillisers. In this extraordinary poignant, vivid and honest memoir, Cathryn describes her horrifying descent into addiction and her fight for freedom from the medication which saved her life—then almost destroyed it.
It is a love story, a horror story and one of the bravest survival stories you will ever read. (From the publisher.)