Lingchi: 1

Addiction doesn't just end lives-it unravels them, slowly and cruelly. Its reach extends far beyond the person suffering. Family members, children, friends-they're the ones left staggering, their worlds upended before they've had a chance to find their footing. Addiction is a thief in the night, a thousand wounds that never heal fully. The poems in this collection lay bare that devastation. But they do more than mourn-they carry hard-won wisdom from those who've stood at the edge and lived to tell the tale. In the end, victory over addiction starts within. It's up to each of us to seize back the narrative, to make our lives mean something more than the false comfort addiction offers. That promise, tempting as it may sound, is fleeting. Lasting change demands a kind of courage that scars and tests us, but in the end, might just set us free.