Out of the maelstrom of a daughter's heroin addiction come these gripping poems of love and powerlessness, tenacity and surrender, brokenness and resilience. In The Heroin Addict's Mother, Miriam Greenspan, eminent psychologist and author of the bestselling Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair offers an intimate memoir that serves as a poetry of witness to the opiate epidemic that is ravaging millions of families throughout the United States.


A...gritty and stirring collection of heartfelt poems...emanating from the power...of a mother's undying love for her addicted child. These poems will resonate with so many out in the world suffering from addiction.
John F. Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry
in Addiction Medicine, Harvard Medical School,
Founder/Director, Recovery Research Institute, Mass General Hospital


Greenspan gifts us with...forceful and courageous poems that speak not only to mothers of addicted children, but to all of us who have feared and fought for our children to be safe and well.
Harriet Lerner, Author of The Dance of Anger


Only a true poet can tell such truths with such power...
Deena Metzger, Author of Ruin and Beauty


...breathtaking, truly brilliant. Destined to be tremendously helpful to so many people going through similar terrifying, gut-wrenching experience and to help others understand in great depth what that world is like.
Paula J. Caplan, Author of Don't Blame Mother:
Mending the Mother-Daughter Relationship


Miriam's words capture the essence of what we who are touched by addiction live and breathe. They remind us we are not alone and that we too can recover.
Joanne Peterson, Founder/Executive Director