The intimate, gorgeous, garish confessions of Joshua Mohr--writer, father, alcoholic, addict

Her teeth marks in the wood are some of my favorite things. Every now and again she rips the pick out of my hand and tosses it inside the guitar . . . I hold it over my head, hole down, shaking it back and forth, the pick rattling around in there. And as it ricochets from side to side, I always think about pills. Maybe the pick has turned into oxy. Or Norco, codeine, Demerol. Maybe it's a pill and when it falls out I can gobble it up.

After years of hard-won sobriety, while rebuilding a life with his wife and young daughter, Joshua Mohr suffers a stroke at the age of thirty-five--his third, it turns out--which uncovers a heart condition requiring surgery. And fentanyl, one of his myriad drugs of choice. This forced "freelapse" should fix…