Jeff Vande Zande teaches fiction writing and screenwriting at Delta College. His books of fiction include Emergency Stopping and Other Stories, Into the Desperate Country, Landscape with Fragmented Figures and Threatened Species and Other Stories (Whistling Shade Press). His novel American Poet won the Stuart and Vernice Gross Award for Excellence in Writing by a

The room’s one window is covered by a dark Venetian blind. The sunlight behind it is only a rumor. There’s a lamp on the desk and a lamp turned on next to Robby where he sits in a leather chair. He’s slumped in his seat with his elbows on the arm rests. His hands hang

There is no doubt that there is an epidemic of opioid abuse in our world. The definition of epidemic in the Cambridge Dictionary:  a particular problem that seriously affects many people at the same time. This particular epidemic is persistent, brutal and killing indiscriminately. But why is this epidemic not being dealt with like other

The rise in popularity of Cocaine or (benzoylmethylecgonine) is most often associated with the disco era of the late 1970’s and 80’s when the glamour of disco clubs such as New York’s Studio 54 influenced popular culture far and wide. It’s almost instant euphoric effect made it the must have drug, not just with addicts,

Using dreams don’t necessarily indicate a hole in our program; for a drug addict, there’s nothing more natural than to dream of using drugs. It has been helpful to me to think of using dreams as gifts from my Higher Power, vividly reminding me of the insanity of active addiction and encouraging us to strengthen

  You never had a problem with buying weed from me in junior high. You seemed to appreciate my proclivity for procuring high quality acid in high school. But when I started smoking meth during my senior year, you called me “a worthless tweeker.” When I missed the SATs because I partied too hard the

Four years ago I swallowed my last pain pill. Christmas night. After days of trying to look past the glowing orange pharmaceutical bottle on the kitchen counter. At Chris’s parent’s home in Pennsylvania. My mind a mess. Months of heavy anti-psychotics, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication. A pill to focus. One to calm. Another to balance. To block

I wonder sometimes, where I’d be now, if I hadn’t stopped drinking and popping xanax. I’ve been advised over and over not to “what if” myself into a bout of anxiety. I get anxious easily. But my mind goes there, now and then. Especially when things are going well. And things are going well right

  The following poems are by Author Jake D. Parent, and were written in memory of his beloved cousin Tim, whom died of a drug overdose in jail. Jake is also Co-Author and Editor of Hearts & Scars – 10 human stories of addiction, whom he dedicated to Tim also. Jake is the author of Only