About the Book
What can I say, I relished failure, for far too a long time. Yes, I know I am supposed to write this in the third person, with brevity and lots of compelling action verbs, colorful adjectives and even the oddball adverb. I just can't do it. I can't call myself Michael, like some ridiculous sports star or actor. After all, this is my story, this memoir is about my life, in all of its ill-conceived glory. In many ways, this story is the proverbial train wreck, Hollywood style: slow motion to heighten the anxiety and anticipation of doom, lots of pyrotechnics shooting off in every direction, maybe some CGI for good measure, and in the end, since it is a big budget production, real impact with life's brick wall. That Michael actually rode this locomotive...see, third person, sounds hokey. Let me start this paragraph again, and yes, I am well aware of the "delete" button and its usefulness. I was indeed on board, sometimes as the engineer, others a paying customer, and even as a hobo, with my harmonica and canned beans. Somehow, I lived through the crash. As an pharmacy intern, I began to self-medicate with the most readily available candy in the store, pharmaceutical opiates like Vicodin and Percocet. As the stops passed by, the lands grew more primal, with morphine quickly becoming normal fare, before finally discovering the granddaddy of all evils, heroin. Why couldn't I just get off the damn train? In hindsight, I was just far too comfortable and to quote Howard Zinn, "You can't stay neutral on a moving train." While I tried to prove him wrong, as often is the case, he's right. Plus, it's hard to get off of something I didn't really understand I was riding. That sounds ridiculous, I know. I was lost in myself though, life was speeding by, and even though I had unknowingly boarded the express train, I was still on track. At one point, I thought I had reached the end of the line, being kicked off at the federal prison stop. So adamant that I would never ride another locomotive, I flew back home after that long year of my life. I felt reborn, embraced the fact I was given a second chance at living, at stopping to enjoy the scenery. Somewhere between smelling the roses and shoveling coal, I decided trains weren't that bad. After all, how cool are those Christmas set-ups at museums with all the cool models, kids on see-saws, football games in parks while clowns sold cotton candy. Why in the world I chose to get back on board, what with the clowns, I will never know. Maybe it's Al Gore's brainwashing and I felt compelled to travel by the greenest way available, which proved to be one inconvenient truth indeed, sir. That second trip was a white knuckler, an overcrowded third world type ride on tracks fashioned from welded coat hangers in a car made out of balsa wood and card board with saran wrap windows. It had to derail. There just wasn't any other outcome, and my mere survival would repeatedly be challenged. In the end, I did lose something that mattered to me, that shook me to my core. My freedom, my career, not even my life was reason enough to quit. The journey is this book. It is ugly, it is funny, and thankfully a triumph rather than a tragedy.
About the Author :
Michael Janflone currently lives in South Florida, home of sunshine, corruption, deflated property values and bad drivers. Currently, he is working on two other books, companion pieces to Long Sleeved Summers. He works as a public speaker on the topic of addiction and recovery (for booking info:206-851-5215), as well as with families and addicts as a sober coach. Picking up the pieces before they were ground to dust has led him here, a place of peace and contentment. He is always willing to help people in need, those struggling with the most insidious disease, or people that know an addict and can't find even a shred of hope.
