Melinda Ferguson spoked to a packed house at Kalk Bay Books when she launched Hooked, her follow-up to the bestselling Smacked. Frank, funny, uncompromising, Melinda made it clear that life as a junkie is as bad as it can get, and that getting clean is not easy. The evening was filled with emotion - with laughter and pain filling the room - ultimately offering a message of hope from a woman who has been down into the depths and who fights for her wholeness every day with courage and conviction.

About the book:

What can be more difficult than breaking a drug habit? Simple: keeping clean.

Melinda Ferguson follows her powerful drug memoir Smacked with this brutally honest account of her post-addiction addictions – from self-help fads, to Oprah, to men, to Facebook.

How does an addict deal with a world in which instant gratification has become the norm? How does an addict break the cycle of use and abuse that has been their life for so many years? How does an addict balance kids, a career and a relationship while fighting to stay clean?

In this no-holds-barred account of her life after drugs, Melinda Ferguson reveals just how easy it is for recovering addicts to slip back into the patterns of behaviour that led them to use in the first place. She takes us to the dark ‘dangerous’ places that all addicts battle to avoid and shows us just what it takes to come back from the brink.

THE AUTHOR
Melinda Ferguson is a recovering drug addict – a story she recounted in her brave memoir, Smacked (Oshun Books, 2005). She headlines the Radio 702/Cape Talk Crime Line initiative where she shares her knowledge and inspiring tales with young people from all walks of life.

Melinda was a finalist in the First for Women/Triba Women of Courage award and currently works as a features editor for True Love magazine.