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Praise for Strung Out

“Khar’s buoyant writing doesn’t get mired in her dark subject matter. There is an honesty here that can only come from, to put it in the language of 12-step programs, a ‘searching and fearless moral inventory.’ This is a story she needed to tell; and the rest of the country needs to listen.” — The New York Times

“One of the strengths of the book is Khar's frank discussion of her relapses, the profound difficulty of those experiences and their utter mundanity…. [Khar writes,] ‘When we write the truth, when we write about our experiences, we reflect back what it means to be a human being. And that reflection creates connection.’ And connection, we can all hope, can reduce stigma, and shame, and pain.” — NPR

"Khar's gripping story challenges the notion of 'it will never happen to my family' and shows exactly how it can. This vital memoir will change how we look at the opiate crisis and how the media talks about it. A deeply moving and emotional read, Strung Out challenges our preconceived ideas of what addiction looks like." — Stephanie Land, New York Times bestselling author of Maid

"The way Khar uses her own life's struggles and her gift of language to make you feel less alone, is a rare thing in this world. You don't want to put this book down as if it is a piece of your own heart, and my guess is that it will become just that." — Jennifer Pastiloff, author of On Being Human

“Strung Out is a searing, fearless, provocative memoir that obliterates all we think we know about addiction. Riveting at every turn.” — Lauren Hough, New York Times Bestselling author of Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing

“The author writes eloquently about heavy ideas. When Khar describes her own cycles of relapses and getting clean it’s particularly insightful and fascinating… The reader will likely come away with a clear understanding and empathy for the power that drugs like opioids and heroin have over their victims.” — Associated Press

“Erin Khar’s memoir, Strung Out, is a compassionate account of her illness and will surely be the gold standard for women writing about heroin addiction.” — BookPage

“Khar is able to describe her behavior with refreshing perspective, and she is candid throughout…This contemporary take on an unfortunately too-common experience is eye-opening and relevant…A necessarily honest and emotional account that ends in earned redemption.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Khar holds nothing back in this moving debut memoir about addiction…This heartbreaking yet heartwarming memoir puts a human face on the drug crisis and the factors that lead to addiction.” — Publishers Weekly

“[Erin Khar] is very effective in recapturing the irrational nature of spiraling addiction and the unique misery of self-loathing during relapses after treatment…[Her] forthrightness goes a long way towards achieving her stated goal of helping to destigmatize opioid addiction…[STRUNG OUT] reveal[s] the complexity of each individual case, thus giving a human face to a national crisis.” — Booklist

“Freelance writer Khar shares her 15-year struggle with heroin addiction in this well-written debut memoir… Khar hopes to help destigmatize drug addiction by telling her story, and she effectively captures how her unprocessed trauma and self-loathing fueled her cycle of drug use… sharing her heartbreaking journey with truth and absolute sincerity.” — Library Journal

“Erin was beautiful even inside her pain, even inside her decade-long opioid addiction, even inside her mistakes and grief. Her beauty is her ability to share this story.” — Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water and The Book of Joan

“A brutally honest and yet tender look inside opioid addiction. Khar pulls aside the mask of an addict, and neither self-pitying or blaming, delves deep into the personal, social and physical reasons for addiction.” — Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder and Butterfly Girl

“In Strung Out, Erin Khar has achieved the extraordinary: she has written a book that is a finely measured balance of heart-shattering and heart-healing, created with stunning humility, vulnerability, and wisdom mined from years of brave research of the self and society. Strung Out uses the protagonist's narrative to shed confident light on the larger socioeconomics and politics of the opioid crisis in a masterful interplay of the foreground and background that is rich, provocative, haunting, and ultimately, a transcendent gift of love for the wounded and lost in all of us, to let us know that we deserve love.” — Reema Zaman, author of I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir.

"An addiction memoir that doesn't ask for pity or forgiveness, Erin Khar's Strung Out is raw and real." — Lilly Dancyger, author of Negative Space and First Love

About the Book

In this deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her fifteen-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction.

Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen. The drug allowed her to escape from pressures to be perfect and suppress all the heavy feelings she couldn’t understand.

This fiercely honest memoir explores how heroin shaped every aspect of her life for the next fifteen years and details the various lies she told herself, and others, about her drug use. With enormous heart and wisdom, she shows how the shame and stigma surrounding addiction, which fuels denial and deceit, is so often what keeps addicts from getting help. There is no one path to recovery, and for Khar, it was in motherhood that she found the inner strength and self-forgiveness to quit heroin and fight for her life.

STRUNG OUT is a life-affirming story of resilience while also a gripping investigation into the psychology of addiction and why people turn to opioids in the first place.

Selected Press