Although there is another thread about James Frey I was hoping to comment as I just watched him on PopeOprah. I mean Oprah.
People lie. Every single day someone, somewhere somebody lies. Most of us are raised to understand that a lie is the very worst thing you can do. I was one of them. I NEVER lied. I would readily say "Yes, daddy I got in the car with that boy". Either way I was getting punished. Still I didn't lie.
Addiction happens, and the lies just come flowing out. In recovery we're told honesty is the only way. I subscribe to that. I have though heard recovering addicts lie their tails off. Is it because of their addiction? Maybe or maybe not.
I personally know a few people that read that book, and took it to heart as in if that dude did it they could and they are clean, and remain clean. The dude didn't just decide to lie. He's a damn writer. Embellish? Yeah. Change it a bit? Yeah. So what? He went through addiction. He was in a rehab. He's clean.
It is in my opinion that Queen Oprah got dupped, and she's beside herself. Like she never lied or embellished? She perfect? No. She has an entire country of women who are robots as soon as she speaks. If she helps people good, but just because she got lied to if that is what it is than I want her to call on Maria Shriver, Hillary Clinton, and on, and on, and on, and make every single one of those people tell how they blatantly lied. She won't. She needs her Peace Prize.
Let her go to a detox center. In a very urban setting with 35 heroin addicts. I did see with my own two detoxing eyes two women with dental work who got NADA. They were crack addicts. One had a tooth pulled, and the other fillings, and I tell you they got nothing. You see a woman crawling on the floor, and a mouth swelled up for four days and stitched up mouth then let Oprah's Dentist say they made it up.
Let her see two women fistfight over a stollen bra. Let her watch someone make themselves puke because they want more 'done. It's an entire practice. Puking, and not throwing it up, but making it look that way. I am not proud I saw it. Not proud I lived it, and am sorry I hurt people, but that Oprah had a bad attitude with that guy. I hope he sells a million more of million, and keeps writing, and stays clean.
Sorry for the rant. That Oprah works a nerve. When she shows up at a detox center with her cameras, and lays in a room with 20 women getting off heroin at the same time then she can call the shots. Or not. She has no idea. None.
James Frey has never been in a room with 20 women getting off heroin, either.
Hey, Bryn, long time no see. I missed Oprah today. I talked to Britt on the way home from work who was watching it and said, "He's a liar." I felt just horrible because she LOVED that book. It made her feel that someone could relate to how she felt. I don't think she's far enough along in her recovery to get that his FEELINGS revolving around the "getting clean" part probably were true and he embelished other areas to make a good read. Gosh, I'm so stuck in the middle here. His book gave me a compassion for the addict, and to this day I appreciate that. I just feel so awful for the addicts that will disregard the "truth" in the book, which I feel is the substance of the book. I agree with you that each and every one of us are guilty of "embelishing" one thing or another. We all do it. I don't think it was his call to publish it as a "memoir" and I think that EVERY MEMOIR we read or watch on film is "embelished" cause let's face it, our lives are just not that exciting when you strip them down. I think my own life could make a pretty interesting read or film...fostered out, forced to return to my mom after years in my foster family, moved across the ocean and shocked with a culture that was so far ahead of where I just came from, fell in love and lived the the hell of living with an alcoholic, raised a child on my own, and then had her become the addict...but if I were to tell it "naked" it would sound quite trite. I just wish they would have marketed (is that a word?) it differently; so that he would not be pitted against "oprah" right now. All in all, his book was the best read I've come across to help me understand the hell an addict goes through trying to beat addiction. If you take away the girlfriend who hung herself and his best friend Leonard and his time in jail, you're still left with the "feelings" and "torment" of one caught in addiction...and that's what I got out of the book. The hellish turmoil that addicts go through in their minds when trying to beat "addiction." And I know for a FACT that that is true, because I heard my own child on many, many occasions saying THE SAME WORDS he said in that book.....constantly trying to quiet those voices in her head....half wanting to be the "good" person she wanted to be and half wanting to just simpy "get high." Of all books for this to happen to. Man, I wish I were his mother, I'd have told Oprah a thing or two.
And beyond that..good to see you, Bryn. miss your funnies. luv corrinne
And beyond that..good to see you, Bryn. miss your funnies. luv corrinne
Miss you too Corrinne. Hope all is well.
Chris, he might have not been in a roomfull of women. You're right, but he was in Hazeldon, and in a room with a bunch of addicts. Some of them heroin addicts.
Chris, he might have not been in a roomfull of women. You're right, but he was in Hazeldon, and in a room with a bunch of addicts. Some of them heroin addicts.
