“The sound of the steel doors, rolling metal on metal, rang in my ears as I lined up with the other inmates incarcerated in the Duval County Jail. Here I was again, locked up, this time for violation of probation in connection with petty theft charges I’d racked up in the throes of another drug and alcohol relapse. At thirty-one years old, I’d been locked up in jail or prison, driven into detox and addiction treatment, or lost on the streets for most of my adult life.”

From the opening chapter, Tim White’s memoir AT THE END OF THE ROAD: ONE MAN’S JOURNEY FROM CHAOS TO CLARITY takes a gritty, honest look at the realities of drug and alcohol addiction and the mind of an addict. It asks hard questions: Can a person change? Can someone move beyond a tough childhood? Or, is it sometimes too late?

Tim White’s childhood was no easy road to travel. As his mother gave birth in a Florida hospital to her fourth son, born of her third marriage, his father battled an addiction to heroin in a German hospital. Shuffled from household to household, Tim spent the better part of his childhood in a Jacksonville neighborhood referred to by the police as Sin City. He wanted only to fit in, to belong, to be loved.

As his drug and alcohol addiction increased, so did his troubles. It wasn’t long before he’d feel the tight grip of handcuffs, expelled from school after school. Addiction is a progressive disease, and, as a teenager, Tim’s was just beginning to stake a claim. One bad choice after another would leave him penniless, powerless, homeless, and near hopeless. But isn’t there always hope?

Fear, selfishness, resentment, and dishonesty play their parts in Tim’s story, but so do faith, surrender, acceptance, and truth. Can we change? Can we move forward? Is it ever too late? More than a memoir, AT THE END OF THE ROAD is a testament to faith, love, hope, and recovery.

It is not a million little pieces. It is a journey of picking up the pieces—of moving forward, then giving back.

Kimberly M.Smith

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