Addicted to heroin and unable to stop on his own, Brian Storm finds himself sitting on the tracks waiting for a train to come and take his life. But things weren’t always this bad for Brian, an aspiring white rapper from Philadelphia who had a good upbringing. In Brian’s early teen years, he discovers that drugs and alcohol are the perfect solutions to his low self-esteem issues. Like most addicts and alcoholics, Brian believes that he can stop at any time, so he doesn’t see any harm in continuing to drink and smoke weed. What he doesn’t know is that with every sip and every puff, he falls deeper into a world of crime and desperation.

The Struggle is a gripping true story that takes you through the life of an alcoholic/addict who hits rock bottom but quickly learns that the more he tries to dig himself out, the deeper that bottom gets. It takes a blessing in disguise for Brian to finally get the help he needs, but when he does, he learns that the Struggle is far from over.

The story behind the story:

I wrote the first version of this book 2-3 years after I got clean and sober. To understand why I wrote this book, I must first explain a couple of things about 12-step programs.

12-step meetings are heavily focused on helping alcoholics/addicts. In fact, it is said that if you want to stay clean and sober, you must help others achieve sobriety. By helping others, you are ensuring your own sobriety.
Now, there are many ways of helping other addicts and alcoholics, but one of the most common ways is by sharing your life story at a meeting. I learned this early on in sobriety and shared my story at meetings whenever someone asked me to speak. Whenever I spoke at a meeting, I would always have people come to me afterward and tell me how powerful my message was. But, after one meeting, in particular, an older gentleman said to me, “You should write a book! You’re going to help so many people.” That was the day the seed, which grew into this book, was planted.

Over the coming weeks, I kept thinking back to what that guy said. I wanted to help as many people as possible. I knew that writing a book would allow me to help many more people, even people I would never meet. However, I had never written a book before, and to be honest, I didn’t even read books that often. However, after talking about the idea with one of my uncles, he said to me, “Well, they say that you should write what you know.” That was the water that fed the seed which grew into this book.

I went home that night and thought about what my uncle said. I mean, what do I know better than my own life story? What do I know better than addiction/alcoholism and recovery? I decided right then and there to get to work, so I turned on my computer and wrote chapter one.

The next day, I wrote chapter two and then chapter three the day after that. The 12-step program taught me to live one day at a time, so that’s how I wrote my book: one chapter at a time. I continued to write a chapter a day until the book was complete.

When I was done writing the book, I ran it through the spell checker and sent the manuscript to get self-published. I didn’t know much about writing back then, so I thought the spell checker would catch all my mistakes; ironically, I was mistaken. I apologize to anyone who has read this version of my story, as I know there are numerous errors in the book. Honestly, I was pretty embarrassed when people pointed them out to me.

Even though there were many errors in the book, I still received a lot of positive feedback. So, I decided to leave it as it was and told myself I would eventually get around to fixing them. I just didn’t realize it was going to take 10 years for me to do that. This is how my newest version of the book “The Struggle: 10 Years Later” came to be.

As I went back to revise the original book, I noticed a lot more than just the usual grammar mistakes. I saw structural issues, jumping around in timelines, and paragraphs that didn’t correctly describe what I was trying to portray.

I recognized these errors because I recently obtained an Associate of Arts degree, which required me to take multiple English courses. These courses have helped me tremendously to become a better writer. So, with my newfound knowledge, I decided to rewrite my book entirely. It’s still the same story, and some parts of the book may be exactly the same, but I rewrote most of it to flow better.

I also decided to dive further into my experience with the 12-steps, as I feel like I didn’t talk enough about the recovery process in the original book. In fact, one of the reviews on amazon said that my book was “just a collection of war stories.” Honestly, I can’t even argue with that because it’s 100% true. So, with this version, I made sure to focus on the recovery aspect of my story in the second half of the book

As I got to the end of the book, I realized I needed to add a lot more to my story because A LOT has happened since I originally published the book. So, I added a few new chapters, explaining how, even though I got clean and sober, I continued to “struggle” at times. But, even with everything life throws at me, I keep moving forward with the help of my high power, the 12-steps, and my friends and family.

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