About the Author

Sandy Swenson is the mother of two sons - one of whom is an addict. The Joey Song chronicles her journey. Bethesda Magazine featured her story in “Letting Joey Go” in its March/April 2013 issue. As a member of the Junior Woman’s Club of Chevy Chase, Sandy created the Bistro Boyz, a program for young men from the National Center for Children and Families’ Greentree Adolescent Program. In 2012, the National Center for Children and Families awarded the Junior Woman’s Club of Chevy Chase the Spirit Award for Humanitarian Advocacy. Sandy loves to garden, read, and travel, and enjoys every moment spent with her son Rick, a recent graduate from American University in Washington, DC. Sandy now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Reviews

THE LIBRARY JOURNAL Swenson, Sandra. The Joey Song: A Mother's Story of Her Son's Addiction. Central Recovery. Sept. 2014. 200p., ISBN 9781937612719. pap. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9781937612726.PSYCH Swenson relates an honest, courageous story of her many years of struggle with her defiant, delusional, and addicted son. Instead of yet another personal memoir from a recovering addict, Swenson displays a valuable focus on how the toxic corrosion of addiction affects relationships with family and friends. She also shares how writing her story helped to release some of the pain, ventilate her anxieties, and allowed her to better manage the never-ending worries about her son's problems and his shaky future, even as he failed to realize that only he had the power to change his life. Swenson candidly admits that her son's addiction remains active and explains how she learned to refocus her efforts on other parents of loved ones suffering from substance abuse who might need help finding a path to recovery. This heart-breaking tale of a hurting family is the flip side of the usual heartwarming recovery story shared in most addicts' memoirs. Coming to grips with the reality that it hurts more to hang on than to let go is a water-shed moment in the lives of most parents struggling with an addicted child. -VERDICT: Swenson's cathartic account reveals her complex feelings about her troubled son that will connect with readers going through similar experiences in their families. --Dale Farris, Groves, TX

As a physician specializing in the treatment of addiction, and as a parent who has struggled with addiction in my own family, I found The Joey Song to be a moving portrayal of a family plagued by the complex issues of a child's addiction. --David E. Smith, MD, FASAM, FAACT, Founder of Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinics of San Francisco