The Weight of Air

A groundbreaking memoir of a double life fueled by heroin addiction and mental illness

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. He needed to be sure he could pull the trigger with a shotgun barrel in his mouth. Twenty-six inches. Thirty-two years old. More than a decade in a double life fueled by heroin addiction and mental illness.

The Weight of Air chronicles David's struggle to overcome the depression that led him to opioids as a teenager. By nineteen, he'd been through medical detox, inpatient rehab, twelve-step programs, and a halfway house, unable to reconcile his experience with conventional wisdom. He saw his addiction as secondary, as a symptom of depression, but the experts insisted that addiction was the primary problem. Over the next thirteen years, he went from one relapse to the next, drowning in guilt, shame, and secrets--until he finally found the treatment that saved his life.

With grit and brutal honesty, David shines a bright light on the flaws in our traditional addiction and recovery models, exposing the opioid crisis for what it really is: a convergence of two deadly epidemics.

"A fluidly written, disarmingly blunt account of heroin addiction and recovery."--Keith Humphreys, Esther Ting Memorial Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

"By sharing his own story with uninhibited candor, David bravely creates a path for others to do the same."--Stephanie Papes Strong, founder and CEO of Boulder Care

"Poses's offbeat humor leavens the chilling details of an often heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful story."--Carol Giacomo, journalist and former member of the New York Times Editorial Board