Breaking Awake

Part Chasing the Scream, part How to do Nothing, Breaking Awake is a riveting journey into the world of modern drug use and the global mental health crisis, and a search for reasons and answers. Part Chasing the Scream, part How to do Nothing, Breaking Awake is a riveting journey into the world of modern drug use and the global mental health crisis, and a search for reasons and answers.

Why do so many of us need drugs to make it through the day? What is wrong with us? In August 2017 a car ploughed into a crowd of peaceful marchers. For P.E. Moskowitz it was a shattering near-death experience, followed by a nervous breakdown. As they willed themselves back to life using a variety of drugs, both prescription and illegal, they started to wonder: why do we need drugs to quell the pain of modern life? In Breaking Awake , Moskowitz takes us on a kaleidoscopic voyage through the twenty-first century''s mental health crisis and the drugs we take - from fentanyl to SSRIs, from ketamine to LSD and beyond - to cope with the gnawing bleakness of our present moment. We meet a team handing out free heroin on the streets of Vancouver and a young mother in Chicago who has been on SSRIs since childhood, ravers in Brooklyn taking drugs to push the limits of human consciousness and ordinary people leading ordinary lives on a constant cocktail of medication. Moskowitz asks: do drugs spark liberation or simply numb our modern malaise? Breaking Awake explores the global mental health and drug use crises whilst searching for answers to find a path to healing.

Autorentext
P.E. Moskowitz is a writer born and raised in New York City. Their writing has appeared in New York magazine, GQ, The Nation, and many other places. They run a popular Substack newsletter about psychology, psychiatry and culture called Mental Hellth. When they're not writing, they're probably playing tennis, chilling with friends across the city, or watching the Mets lose again. For more information, visit their website at Moskowitz.xyz.

Klappentext

Six years ago, I woke up shaking in a hotel room with my sense of reality shattered. Colours were distorted, the walls seemed to breathe and shadows felt like threats. I thought I was going to die. This marked the beginning of a year-long mental breakdown. Nothing worked - not antidepressants, not therapy, not yoga. I was too far gone... until I wasn't.

This is the story of my journey from the brink of suicide to a semblance of stability, purpose and, crucially, hope. I only got here through figuring it out in my own way - through a combination of major life changes, forays into psychopharmaceuticals and research into the myriad factors that were causing me, and so many others, so much pain.

Together we will fall into our own rabbit holes, deep into the brain and deep into the darkest parts of our society, where we can finally illuminate the wounds most affecting us. We will discover the alienated young people living online without real-world connections; we will meet hallucinogen-takers at a ketamine clinic; we will analyse the politics of the moment which is plaguing our generation with a sense of doom; and I will reflect on my own harrowing journey with mental illness and how I ultimately got a hold of it.

A braided work of memoir, history, theory and cross-country reportage, Rabbit Hole is a taboo-shattering journey of hope and transformation which provides answers that cannot be found in a psychologist's office or a self-help book, and instead encourages us to take our care into our own hands.