Lost Years: Surviving a Mother and Daughter's Worst Nightmare by Kristina Wandzilak, Constance Curry
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(Paperback)
- Publisher: National Book Network
- Pub. Date: October 2006
- ISBN-13: 9780977761814
- Sales Rank: 54,787
- 296pp
Synopsis
A child caught in the horror of alcohol and drug addition. A mother helplessly standing by unable to save her. The Lost Years is the real life story of just such a mother and child, each giving their first-hand accounts of the years lost to addiction and despair. Kristina, the second of four children, tells how she turns to alcohol for comfort when she is thirteen. She gives a brutally honest description of her descent into addiction, prostitution, burglary and violent rape until her near death on the floor of a homeless shelter completely alone at the age of twenty-one. Adding a heart-wrenching counterpart to the story, Kristina's mother, Connie, tells of her powerlessness to help her addicted daughter, the break-up of her unhappy marriage and how she comes to terms with her own co-dependency. She is also faced with the worst choice a mother has to make, to close the door on Kristina, sending her onto the streets in order to save herself and protect her other children. Then follows the remarkable story of Kristina's recovery as she lives through rehab, her mother's tough love and the years of acclimating herself to living a normal life.
Customer Reviews
Lost Years: Surviving a Mother and Daughter's Worst Nightmareby Anonymous
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February 01, 2007: This book reached into my heart and laid bare my life for the past 30 years. It was healing and hopeful for me. My daughter has struggled with this disease for years and I pray our outcome will be similar. However, I will love her forever.
Lost Years: Surviving a Mother and Daughter's Worst Nightmareby Anonymous
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November 13, 2006: Told from the complementary perspectives of an addict and her mother, The Lost Years is a rich chronicle of drug and alcohol addiction and recovery from those addictions. Kristina Wandziak describes her long, painful slide into addiction, crime and life on the streets. Constance Curry, Kristina's mother, describes the denial and co-dependence by which she unwittingly, and certainly unwillingly, facilitated her daughter's addictions. Together, these joint accounts reveal the personal and familial complexities that contribute to and derive from addiction. The Lost Years is a gritty, often grim, account of the horrors of addiction. More importantly, though, it is a book about hope and redemption. Kristina can never relive the years of her youth that she wasted on drugs, alcohol and crime. Constance can never recover the sleepless nights she lost wondering if her daughter was alive, warm or safe. Nevertheless, both of them have moved beyond addiction and its effects, beyond the trials of recovery, to lives of contentment, fulfillment and purpose. That inspirational message is the reason this book should be read by anyone whose life is affected by the tragedy of addiction.
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