Hammered: Memoir of an Addict Paperback – February 29, 2012

I love stories about addicts and drug rehabilitation. This one caught my eye due to it being a memoir and a true story about a man struggling with his addictions. I have huge respect for a person who is willing to share their story with the world, especially when it pertains to something like this - Let's face it, the writer doesn't come from a great past. Sharing his story is important for the horrible addiction disease that is growing more common everyday.I really wanted to rate this 5 stars just for the reasons stated above, but due to several issues, I can't bring myself to give it the complete 5 star rating that it potentially could be worth if cleaned up. --- First off, there were some typo's that got distracting. I understand that the author is from Australia, but there were some grammatical issues that weren't due to different types of English styles. A few didn't bug me, but after awhile, it pulled me from the story. Secondly, there were parts that got repetitive. At one point, I turned my Kindle on to continue reading and thought that somehow, it had skipped back a few chapters, only for me to realize it was right where I left it, but a similar scenario was happening again.The story is heartbreaking and I felt I was right beside the author with his struggle to get clean - toward the end, it was true to fashion in how addicts want to get clean but they continue to relapse and go right back to using. I was hoping that he'd eventually find the light at the end of the tunnel and stay sober, and I hope that is still true today for this man.If you are into gritty, real life stories, this is good - I feel like it has potential to be a good, strong 5 star book if the author gets it edited and deletes some of the repetition. I understand that since it's a memoir, history repeats itself for addicts, but summarizing might help progress the storyline quicker.Thanks for sharing your story, G.N. Braun, and I wish you continued success with your sobriety.

It's very hard to say I `liked' Hammered. There isn't a lot to like about the abuse of a nine year old boy - by a person put in charge of young children - whose role it is to teach them, inspire and mould their innocent minds, so they can venture forth in life with confidence. Instead young Joe was violated in the most horrific of ways, for two years. As I write this, I do hope Mr. Duffy is rotting slowly in hell. As well as the sexual abuse, Joe was bullied at school. He had no siblings in which to confide, no real friends, nor did he have a strong connection with his adoptive parents. Joe was on his own in a very scary world, and in his search for a meaning to this terrifying life he'd been born into - Joe found drugs, or maybe drugs found Joe - it doesn't matter, either way Joe's young life now spirals down the gurgler as he is drawn deeper and deeper into a world of addiction. What follows is a harrowing account of one man's addiction to hard drugs. The story is told from an addict's perspective - all that matters is scoring that hit, getting that taste and he will let nothing get in the way of it. The addiction will turn this young man into a liar, a thief a compassionless manipulator of people he professes to love. In this story of ruined beginnings, G.N. Braun deals with other people who are close to him, the way an addict would. There is a sense when reading it, of a total disconnection to anyone in his life, including the children under his care. I would have liked a bit more light and shade in the telling, a little bit of softening, some real emotion shown towards others - but I guess there's not much light to be had, when your trust has been violated at an early age - and you are locked in the darkness of drug addiction - and all that matters in your life is drugs. It is a gritty and grim read. G N Braun doesn't supply any window dressing for the story of his younger life - he doesn't soften the harsher parts or mince his words - he lays them down with a sledge-hammer. Braun tells it like it was - and it was bloody awful. I felt quite hollowed out when I finished it, and once again - even though there is a happy ending - I found myself wishing for a little bit more of the happiness - more details on how his life has now changed. The author has dragged the reader through the many harsher moments of his life, it was the least he could have done. Maybe a sequel will address the imbalance in the future. So why 5 stars? It's well written, it has to be to stir up such complex emotions in a reader. It's an honest story - Braun doesn't preach, nor does he ask for pity. Any young kid who's dabbling in drugs, or thinking of it, should read Hammered. If Braun's story can turn one young life around in the right direction, then it's done its job. Four stars for that. The fifth star is for bravery - it's a brave man indeed who opens the sordid details of a far from brilliant life - up to the possibility of censure from the critics of the world.

"Hammered: Memoir of an Addict" is not the sort of read one would expect from such a title. After closing the last page of this book and setting it aside on my nightstand, all I could think about is how quiet and calm this book is, how utterly straight forward and honest a portrayal this is of one man's life steeped in the miasma of drug addiction and crime.While most books of this nature tend towards the melodramatic, the romanticism and sometimes near glorification of the addict and the lifestyles of addicts and criminals, this memoir is true-to-life, not only because of the fact that it is the truth, but also because the tone in which it is written underscores the normalcy in which the addict finds himself after the experimentation phase is over and the addiction is day-to-day life. G.N. Braun takes no pains to romanticize his experience, nor to make his experience seem unique. To the contrary, his story is told in a way that is so matter of fact that there is only what is there: truth. Ugly, sometimes funny, painful, loving and struggling truth.Most remarkable about this tale, given the genre, is that while Braun makes no excuses for his choices (although of course there are reasons people fall into these traps), he also doesn't make heavy apologies or confessionals about his experience. He simply tells it like it was, which, as an avid reader of memoirs, I appreciate enormously. It's often too easy for an author to stray from the facts and fall into the temptation of egocentric, long-winded, self-centered narration in books of this genre. Braun does none of that. The book is nearly minimalist in its realism.I highly recommend Hammered: Memoir of an Addict to any and all who wish for a wide open view into another human being's life, without gilding, decoration, punch-pulling or the fastidious nitpicking that many a memoirist is guilty of.I loved it.

I agree with previous reviewer Miss Suzanne Mann - this book is well-written and it does not include the standard cliches and tricks to evoke sympthy. It isn't sentimental in the least. It is a fairly factual chronological true account of one man's drug addition and where it led him. The author accepts full responsibility for his drug problem and reflects upon and draws from his experiences honestly.It is written in a fairly basic, sparse format - you see strings of names but none of them stick in your mind as they aren't described much, other than the author's girlfriend. I suppose this is intentional or at least accurate, as he does seem to have met a great many people through his life and as a result of his drug habit(s), but many of them are just passers-by, not major characters in the story of his life. They're part of a chapter in his life and in the book, and then they're gone. Such is the life of an addict.One thing I did particularly enjoy, as Brit, was the probably-unintentional inclusion of some quality Aussie lingo. If you've ever impersonated a character on Neighbours, you too may enjoy this. It's refreshing to see a drug story based in Australia as the ones I have read previously have been in America or Britain, possibly one in Europe. The cultural contrasts are evident and it all seems rather pleasant and friendly, even despite the lying in a pool of mystery fluid at the beginning and the threats of violence at one point in the middle. In fact, it's the police that come across as really nasty, but then I suppose that would be the case, as the book is written by the criminal in that situation.I can't really criticise this book at all - I have nothing particularly bad to say about it. It didn't annoy me. I read it all the way through in one sitting but it wasn't a page-turner. The writing is clear and well-edited. It's not full of hyperbole, repetition or self-pity. But unfortunately, I will have to damn it with faint praise. It just didn't grab me, I suppose. Perhaps the matter-of-fact style was the reason, or the reasonably even 'plot' (it's not really a plot - it's his life - but I'm not sure of the right word to use. The sequence of events had no mountains or chasms, it was just mildly hilly.) It didn't excite me or draw me in or make me think deep thoughts or anything at all.It's certainly a story that others who suffer or have suffered from drugs could stand to read and benefit from. There's an inspirational achievement on the part of the author by the end. It's a very human story but it didn't make my heart strings sing sad violin songs.

A good read repetitive at times but I suppose addiction can be.The rollercoaster of emotions that must have accompanied this journey seems to on the whole to be strangely missing,but again through addiction maybe emotions are missing,and maybe that's the authors intention.

I found this book very interesting, It is a real insight into the mind of an addict but light hearted in places at the same time as the author has a way of making it all seem a lot less serious than it actually was!! A must read.

excellent read

Read this book now. I would deffo recommend everyone to read it. Took me all of 5 days from start to finish.