Book description
Leaving Dirty Jersey is the compellingly crafted tale of James
Salant's descent into crystal meth addiction. Written at the age of
only twenty-two, this memoir chronicles his year-long addiction with
complete honesty and heartbreaking candour.
Brought up in a stable, middle-class family, the second son of two
therapists, he was introduced to heroin at seventeen by his brother
Joe. This resulted in a spell in rehab where he met a bunch of
ex-convicts, and he soon fell into the thuggish, drifting lifestyle of
meth addiction. It was to take a near-psychotic event to finally get
him to clean up.
With graphic descriptions of life on crystal meth - the insatiable
sex drive, the paranoia, the desperate need for more drugs to sustain
the high - James' writing mimics the emotional detachment of the drug
and the wired yet aimless life it induces. His voice is so open and
authentic, it is hard to believe he is still so young.
Given the nickname Dirty Jersey, while living as a tough guy-junkie
in California, James had it tattooed on the inside of his left arm.
There it remains as a graphic and permanent reminder of his past life
as a junkie.
James Salant has been clean since September 2003. After his release
from a court-mandated stay at a rehabilitation programme he has lived in
New Jersey, working as office manager an educational consulting firm
which manages an academy for students who are experiencing difficulties,
and as a floor trainer at a health club in Princeton.
