Book Reviews

amazon review 4

Jack Conroy was one of 60,000 to die of an opioid-heroin overdose in 2015,– more deaths than from all of Vietnam. But Jack not a lost kid. He was Barbara Bates Conroy’s son and the Conroy family had the means and the will to do anything to save him. They couldn’t. Jack had a gifted intellect and was a superb athlete. We know. As next door neighbors we knew him from birth, coached him as a very young soccer player, and saw him grow into a fearless stallion by his early teams. Jack felt he was invincible and could con all of us into believing he was clean even after 4 rehabs and serious brushes with the law. But as Barbara writes: “Mothers know”. Never a stoner, Jack looked like the fittest guy in town but underneath he was seized by opioids and then its cheaper substitute heroin. Barbara’s anguished,searing,pleading but always loving letters make up the core of this short book which you’ll want to read in one sitting. A surprise is that Jack wrote Mom back about his desperation to get out of his black hole. Those hand scratched letters expressed his real grief and fear. No excuses. No con. And so the Conroy family with all the means and connections to get Jack the best help in the nation kept trying until that April,1 2015 phone call came from San Diego to say: “Jack is dead”.
The power of this book is that there is no preaching, no excuses and no flinching from Barbara. It is once of those rare missives written from the heart, told with brutal honesty. Only at the end where she reveals her quest to find spiritual relief after Jack’s death does she ask us to think about what two decades of freely dispensed opioids from doctors and pill pushing drug companies have done to our nation. Now that it’s officially a national epidemic we’re deeply alarmed and Washington is spending billions to fight a problem that could have been squashed a decade ago except of course for all the money. Barbara never quit. She knew. If Dear Jack makes you want to string up the politicians and regulators and pharma company CEO’s who also knew and covered up you would be in good company. Families with addicts know this tale too well. Every parent should.

 

 

amazon review 4

Dear Jack was a trip down memory lane, good and bad. As someone who battles with addiction everyday it was an eye opener to see what the outcome of continuing down the dead end path was. It was heartfelt, emotional, but most importantly REAL. There are no filters in this book. You get all the honesty in what addiction brings to not only the person suffering but the people around the person suffering. I make sure to read this book everyday as a constant reminder of what true love is, what heartache brings and what a mother’s love is supposed to be. Thank you Barbara for being the most courageous person I know by showing your scars and sharing them with the entire world. I love this book and everything it stands for!

amazon review 3

There are numerous reasons why Dear Jack will prove to be a seminal contribution in the fight against the national crisis of opioid addiction. Through a lifetime of love letters to her son Jack, her search for answers, and revelation of her own courageous pursuit of healing, Barbara Conroy’s book embraces anyone caught in the grips of this fatal disease but provides a way through and out. There is no doubt that her book will save lives. Perhaps this is both her and Jack’s sacred gift to us.

Her book brings us face-to-face not only with the life-destroying consequences of opioid addiction, but the underlying relational traumas that can lead people to seek escape through drugs in a desperate attempt to cope. It is this revelation that makes her book a necessary read for any parent.

Simultaneously, any professional working in the field of addiction recovery should be required to read Dear Jack for it calls into question the entire paradigm of “rehabilitation” and the harsh reality of profit-motivated recovery efforts. By sharing the soul-crushing bipolar reality of recovery and relapse, Dear Jack is a call for change in the field of recovery.

Ultimately, in a mother’s love letters to her son, we are gifted with the assurance that there is a way to restore ourselves to a place of truth, beauty, compassion, and acceptance in the face of tragedy. As Barbara shares her journey with Jack, we too experience the healing power of a mother’s unconditional love, tenderness, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Barbara shows us that the very best of Jack – the essence of his childlike charisma, joy and kindness – are not lost in his passing, but remain for us to realize in ourselves and encourage in each other.

amazon review 2

The most sorrowful and powerful of stories, love, loss and understanding.

I approached this book cautiously. As a sibling of an addict I viewed each letter and each chapter through the eyes of my own mother and all her years of dedication to keep loving her son through the ups and downs of hope gained and hope lost, and through my own mothering of a son and how I watch daily for the tiniest signs of addiction, from learning challenges, behavioral choices, compulsions, needs, failures, gains, struggles. It is a false lens but I viewed our life and relationship though the lens of fear inherited from my own experience within a family dealing with addiction. And I came away from the book with a renewed sense of purpose and need to be bigger than the fear, to overcome it, and be better at understanding the need to be loved, no matter what.

To read Barbara’s story and letters from her to her son from his birth to death and her after story of survival and self-discovery and most important her absolute will to remain connected to Jack, to seek his spirit and to remain whole were captivating. I loved every dedication Barbara made and direction taken. Her words and search to heal as a family were gripping and emotionally difficult. I and I’m sure all readers wanted to take some of the pain away from this mother and her family. But we see, as she sees, that grief was/is part of the healing. I am reminded by Dear Jack of the strength of mothers everywhere and the horror of the disease that is addiction.

amazon review 1

I read this in less than two days, but it has stayed with me for over a month now. Jack Conroy was a beautiful boy from a beautiful family. A family of hardworking, big loving, contagiously dynamic souls. In all things and across all seasons, their pursuit of family and of faith has always stayed at work. They stood for each other and radiated generations of deeply rooted love and treasured traditions. As my tears now begin to fall, I pray this book brings to light the full breadth of a family’s fears, reality and needs when battling drugs. With faith, fight, funds and friends — a full court press to take their Jack back — Barbara Bates Conroy and her family persevered at every turn before losing their beloved Jackamo. I remember at Jack’s funeral, Barbara said, “I thought our love was bigger than drugs.” She also said, “We are Easter people” — a profound testament to the strength of this family and a sentence I will never forget. Barbara quotes Roman’s 8:38 throughout her book. Reading this mother’s full surrender to the journey she is now on, I’m also reminded of Romans 5:3, “…knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” May this story of unconditional love, loss, search and fight shine bright and bring hope to this remarkable family of brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties and uncles — a hope that Jack’s story will shatter the darkness of drug addiction and electrify this mother’s steadfast pursuit to help others, and bring life saving change.

 

Experience begets wisdom like no other teacher.

Ultimately a story of the power of love.

Barbara Conroy brings to light her son Jack’s legacy in her novel “Dear Jack” a love letter. A legacy of relentless love, tireless devotion and new awareness’ that were hard fought by a mother and her teen age son.
The reader is given a window into the life of the Conroy family. An idyllic family in a beach side setting was the backdrop of she and Jack’s life.
The innocence and goodness that describe Jack as a child through his mother’s eyes make clear there is no defect of character that lead to his becoming an addict. It is not a choice.

As they navigate recovery centers and treatments for Jack’s rapidly progressing disease of addiction, Barbara is stunned by the power of the darkness that accompanies active addiction. Brutality and broken lives are its reality.

In her desperate struggle to seek the answers, Barbara realizes that only love and truth can dispel darkness.
She begins to see that addiction is a symptom, not a cause. Her seeking leads her to realize the addict should not be criminalized but seen as a human being suffering on some deep level.
In the end, her purpose is revealed as she begins sharing what her experiences in trying to save her son, and then in grappling to find answers after his passing, have revealed to her about her son’s battle with addiction.
With the deepest reverence, Barbara Conroy shares relevant and most timely information for all. Not just those who are living in the shadows of addiction themselves or with a loved one, but for society as a whole. A generation is being lost to opiate overdoses in our country. Barbara shares the information she learned through her experiences trying to understand a disease that baffles even those who have it. Experiences forged by fire, resulting in wisdom inspired by love.

Amazing. That thing called grace.

Jennifer Black-Ross

This book will change lives.

The honest, raw truth of a family’s fight to save their beloved Jack from the power of drugs.
I read this in less than two days, but it has stayed with me for over a month now. Jack Conroy was a beautiful boy from a beautiful family. A family of hardworking, big loving, contagiously dynamic souls. In all things and across all seasons, their pursuit of family and of faith has always stayed at work. They stood for each other and radiated generations of deeply rooted love and treasured traditions. As my tears now begin to fall, I pray this book brings to light the full breadth of a family’s fears, reality and needs when battling drugs. With faith, fight, funds and friends — a full court press to take their Jack back — Barbara Bates Conroy and her family persevered at every turn before losing their beloved Jackamo.

I remember at Jack’s funeral, Barbara said, “I thought our love was bigger than drugs.” She also said, “We are Easter people” — a profound testament to the strength of this family and a sentence I will never forget. Barbara quotes Roman’s 8:38 throughout her book. Reading this mother’s full surrender to the journey she is now on, I’m also reminded of Romans 5:3, “…knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” May this story of unconditional love, loss, search and fight shine bright and bring hope to this remarkable family of brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties and uncles — a hope that Jack’s story will shatter the darkness of drug addiction and electrify this mother’s steadfast pursuit to help others, and bring life saving change.

Sarah Illingworth