FIRST EVER REVIEW by Mr.Nitro in the good ol' US of A.

There are books that seem written in ink; others seem carved in blood. If you've never experienced the lunacies of highs and withdrawals, or the even more lunatic logic that rules both, this book is a shocking but indispensable lesson. And if, like me, you've lived some version of it, mine being booze, this book will bring you face-to-face with your own shadow. Honest, unflinching, foul-mouthed, and tragically poetic, this memoir is a chaotic symphony of destruction and desperation that ultimately smuggles in a strange kind of hope. Northlandbay isn't here to seek sympathy or neaten up his image. He puts it bluntly-his journey from Royal Tunbridge Wells to Peru's shanty towns wasn't some holy journey; it was a desperate geographical solution to a decades-long addiction to heroin, an illness he wears like a tattered jacket. "Too much is never enough," he writes-and God, does it ring true. He didn't try to destroy himself; he wanted to feel better. Better than the pain, the empty hurting, the home life with all the screaming, the shame, the lack of emotional air. For me, that came from the bottom of a whisky bottle. For him, it was from heroin to fentanyl to methadone.

What was most striking for me was the savage candor of Northlandbay's voice. His writing is half-confession, half-literary explosion. He hides nothing: he speaks freely of overdoses, hepatitis anxiety, unwanted HIV tests, even having friends throw him into a bathtub in the middle of an OD. And still, there's no self-pity. He takes responsibility, even when recounting the grimmest scenes shooting up in public bathrooms, substituting one fix for another, and the sickening, crawling sensation of methadone withdrawals. This isn't sanitized recovery; it's lived experience scribbled on the walls of rock bottom. It won't be for readers who want a tidy "redemption arc," there is movement, growth, survival but never assurance.

From London to Lima, from detox to total relapse, Jay's story transports us along the Andes, along backstreet pharmacies, down into Peru's drug underworld, and even deeper into his own mind. His accounts of hallucination, half-conscious metaphysical epiphanies, and of being "a junkie by profession" aren't written for shock value-they are part of a philosophical accounting. What is choice? What is identity? What is freedom? These are the questions he investigates, not with neat solutions, but with bloodied knuckles and ink. There are flashes of humor and even black humor that remind you he's still human, not merely an addict-shaped specter. Tales about customs officials, paranoid tourists, and obsessive-compulsive girlfriends serve to lighten the mood, but also to add depth to the picture of a man balancing on the high wire between comedy and ruin.

And then there's the writing-raw, vivid, unapologetic. Jay's style is jagged and rhythmic, like Kerouac meets Bukowski with a syringe in his sock. He mixes literary references, street slang, philosophical digressions, and poetry. He says he knew it wouldn't work-"you're just taking your addiction with you"-and yet, he still boarded the plane. That contradiction-knowing you're going to lose but fighting anyway-is what makes the book not only interesting, but agonizingly human. Jay has done something remarkable-he's taken the same mind that addiction attempted to decay and turned it into a beacon.

If you're in recovery, this book may be the mirror you're scared to look into-but trust me, you'll be thankful that you did. If not, but you care about someone who is, this may be the most truthful thing you'll ever hear about the authentic experience.

Northlandbay's book isn't going to provide you with a "happily ever after"-it provides you with truth, harsh and unfiltered. And for addicts such as myself, that is the most precious, most elusive drug of all.

JAY FORR NORTHLANDBAY: "Absurd as it may be, the liberty I'm fighting for is freedom from enslavement to a plant - Papaver somniferum - commonly known as the opium poppy. "Jay Forr Northlandbay (January 2025)."Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. "New Statesman (25/02/1933)."The issue with heroin is that it's fucking ineffable." Jay Forr Northlandbay (January 2025) I'm your regular English bloke, born in Bromley, and have spent most of my life in the County of Kent. On leaving school I started my career felling trees on my doorstep - the neighbouring Ashdown Forest. It wasn't long afterwards, suffering from physical as well as emotional pain, quite apart from trauma, that I took a lifestyle choice. A resolute decision to start using skag. I then spent another twenty years hooked on heroin and other opioids. But there comes a time when one gets sick and tired of being sick and tired. I've tried Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) where they display a (usually faded) bright yellow card which reads: "WHO you see here, WHAT you hear here, WHEN you leave here, LET IT STAY HERE". Unfortunately, not everyone stays schtum, and there sure are a lot of blatherskites you cannot count on to keep their big mouths shut. I wouldn't go so far as to say they caused me to fall off the wagon, but they caused me countless hardships so that I question my commitment and sometimes think it's wiser to stay away from the rooms. Apart from sobriety, anonymity is the foundation stone of these meetings, so if it's disregarded the whole edifice that's AA/NA comes crumbling down. Certain people, having had their anonymity broken have gone back to the booze and drugs; some of those have died. There're also those in AA who think that people with drug issues have no place at their meetings; in this day and age and in my experience, it's rare to come across an alcoholic who hasn't also had a problem with some drug or another, because that's the nature of addiction. Some ignorant arseholes fail to see that alcohol is the most destructive drug of them all. And do you know what? there's a saying amongst the people that go to AA and NA who want to stay clean 'n' sober 'n' sane and distance themselves from all the craziness that surrounds it, and it goes like this: "There are a lot of sick people in these rooms". Which is true. If they weren't sick, they wouldn't have fetched up there in the first place. And that's why I no longer attend meetings. I believe that for those with addictive personalities it's actually harder to drink or do drugs in moderation than stay teetotal: "Temperance is harder than abstinence"; that's my dictum, anyway. Although I became a junkie, and despite what others might say, I've never considered myself just a junkie - probably down to egocentricity - and I hope that shows in my written matter. To be truthful I've always written as a pastime, but I've never set foot in a university or done anything helpful such as a creative writing course. I did fancy a course called "Social Anxiety", but nobody turned up for lectures. Somebody once told me (I think it was Ivan the Dealerman) "No bovver geezer, if ya write like ya yak, ya ain't gon 'ave no problemo." Well, I'd like to think everything's up to scratch, but ultimately, I'll let you be the judge of that . . .