Wasting Talent

If you know of anyone struggling with an addiction to drugs, this will tear your heart out, stomp on it and break it some more. If you don't know of anyone struggling with addiction, it will still tear your heart out, stomp on it and break some more because the author of this book, like so many in our country today, does not survive his battle. The drugs are winning and it feels like there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

Idk what else to say

It's been a few weeks since I finished Wasting Talent, and Damien Cantwell feels like a bad dream I can't shake. This book was written in such an up close and personal way it is hard to break away from it without feeling as if the main character is someone you know, someone you wish you didn't have to know and watch struggle. The depiction of drug addiction was so accurate, I at times felt the need to check my hands to see if they were shaking because my own memory of withdrawal was brought with such force to the front of my mind - I couldn't stop nodding my head along with the main character, mouthing the words 'I get it, man'. Let me be clear, I absolutely loved every minute of this book and I identified with the main character so strongly it made it difficult to put down. Leone perfectly captures the inner dilemma and lack thereof when faced with an addiction that quiets all other aspects of self- there is no such thing as a moral compass anymore, yet in brief moments you see a glimmer of the person Cantwell could have been, started out to be, and it becomes even more heartbreaking than it already was. It is impossible to stop rooting for him, despite everything he does, which is what I find the most accurate of all. Cantwell is that best friend in your life you just want to get better, who you believe in and support against all odds, fighting for them because you see the immeasurable talent within them that could provide them a life of happiness and freedom if only they were willing to let it, if only they could begin to fathom a life without drugs. I love this book, and while it is a fictional novel, I have yet to come across something more honest and accurate to the drug addicted lifestyle, and how it changes people. I found it impossible to not understand Damien, his sense of humor, and his reasoning behind all actions. The urgency in which he administers drugs in situations with heightened stress and danger, as well as situations with virtually none at all- how they parallel, how he acknowledges that this is no longer a desire it is a NEED, that there is something inside him that he needs to kill and that can only be accomplished with a complicated series of drugs and alcohol that he understands the effects of too well. Damien is an excellent example of what it is to be a drug addict, to love a drug addict, and to have your heart broken by a drug addict - over and over and over again.

The choices and logic he used in this book are totally accurate to the choices a iv heroin user makes and how you justify it in your mind and the series of events he went through in this story sad to say are quite common for addicts to end up in it’s crazy

Predictably sad ending to the author's life. Can't say I found this book very compelling, it mostly reads like grossly exaggerated versions of someone else's stories. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I've lost family members to opiates so the stories get real old real fast. *sigh*

Jesus. Ryan Leone writes like lightning. I finished and closed this book a few nights ago and I have yet to open anything else. I'm still glitched. It's been a really long time since this has happened. Leone KNOWS what he's writing about. He has found a way to make the main character, Damien, both witness and identify with addiction while blasting through everyone that will help him cop and everything that will give him the space to fix. And while Damien finds one experience after another to make this happen, Leone finds a way to make the violence of being an addict unapologetic. It's not a choice. It's a life that makes getting high the only reason to keep breathing. The vulgarity of what ensues on each page for Damien made me think of Bob Forrest when he said a long time ago, " I knew drugs were gonna kill me but it wasn't gonna be tonight." The format of the text for this book was a wise choice. Every sentence feels like a situation. It's relentless. When you're in the grips it's not a fight. It's an assault. And only an addict knows that. Damien shows us first hand that surrendering to that reality is a place where fear becomes something else without words. If you've never got down with drugs - or you love Stahl and Little and Burroughs and PKD and Sartre - or you're rallying and been clean a while - or you're in Detox chewing on Benzos and watching Family Feud on mute in the day room... read this book. Leone will get in your blood and change your circulation.

WHEW! Effing WHIRLWIND! I loved it. Kept me into it from page 1. Sometimes I felt like it was a little TOO much but the details were spot on. As someone who has lived "the life" and has been through the recovery process, I can honestly say not one detail was off. Shooting and eating various narcotics, the combination of drugs and lack of sleep - and particularly the part about methadone clinics- all of it is detailed so truthfully, it puts the reader in a very realistic point of view. It's a love story, albeit super messed up but that's also another very realistic aspect of the book when combined with the "live fast, die young" lifestyle.All in all, A book I am telling all my friends to read. Even those who don't really care to read, this could interest many.

I've had a stint of drug problems many years ago and fortunately stopped short at getting in to heroin. Let's face it, however, it's probably good stuff. But be prepared to watch your life spiral down the plughole as this book shows...I also tend to gravitate towards stories about drug use and drug addiction because you know that to write this sort of stuff, the author will have been to some messed up places. Nobody is going to tackle this subject without some first-hand experience because it will just come across as unbelievable to all those who have.Wasting Talent has pretty much pushed the portrayal of drug use and addiction to the absolute limits with what Damien goes through. And what struck me was the authenticity. The narrator's voice was that of a tortured but almost apathetic soul. This is all down to his addiction and an almost masochistic inability to act on his own potential (or talent might be the better word). There was also strokes of absolute genius throughout it. Like; that babbling stream of consciousness which users often display coming and going at random. And analysing all those ridiculous details in life; like the part when Damien's recording the answer machine message and he's going out of his mind over things which, when sober, really don't matter.I also loved all the punk rock music references and the portrayal of rave culture; this made the whole thing so much more real and dirty. I used to go to similar places here in the UK years ago, ringing up answer machines for directions and then setting out as high as a kite with mates and not stopping until we're sitting in a squat, listening to some jungle music and gassing to strangers. It brought it all back!In sum it was a tough read, a great journey and an ultimately touching example of the consequences of addiction. Up there with Train Spotting and Junkie, and everyone should get on it.

This book is amazing. You never know when Damien is going to do the next radical thing to put his life in danger. Makes Trainspotting look like Ferris Bueller's day off.

Wow this book is f***** up!It is so difficult to give a review of this book.You could feel that things were gonna get dark and nasty but I wasn't expected this.The treatment of cops was pretty funny but that was the end of the laughing.This book is not for everybody, but is a really good insight into the world of drugs, I can't believe I was never taught the ice cube trick whilst learning first aid in the scouts.Damien is the star of this show and he knows it. He is so egotistical that all you really get to see is his bad sides, you do get glimpses of what he used to be but the drugs soon smother them.

A great book on the worst aspects of drug use ,I would've preferred the rise then descent like Crowley's "Diary of a drug fiend" wrote 100 years ago and Leone is almost on a par literary talent wise with Hubert Selby Jr ,my all time favourite author.Leone's style put me in the scenes and characters minds Mark Z Danielewski the Yale English lecturer is the only author alive I rate higher for impact than Leone.

This book really did capture all emotions. It was so honest and raw. I felt like I was in those scenarios with those people. Everyone needs to read this book to realise the struggles of addiction and how bad and desperate it can get for a person.