If you've posted here before, I apologise but we were hacked and lost all this material . Please post again!

Hey Heather, there was just a cover story in City Pages about Anoka County and its high rate of taking kids from parents and the foster home situations there. Well, the judge quoted throughout is one of the judges from your book (whose name we changed).

Heather, where you at? Did you give up on us since we lost everything ??

Once the semester ended, I took off on a hiatus. Was basically on the road for like two weeks. Been back in the dirty dirty for like a week now. I still have a few more days of vacation left before I have to return for school. I only have three actual classes left to take. Two this semester and then one next year. Wow! Kinda hard to believe. I am officially twenty seven years old as of a few minutes ago. That seems crazy. Perhaps that means that its time for me to grow up although I think that I can say that I am more grown up than I have ever been, but I've also done some growing down. I am sure that doesn't make sense to anyone but me. More and more, I have been released from the prison walls that have surrounded me, the monstors that have haunted my dreams, and the demons that have tried to destroy me. I have looked those things which have always scared me the most straight in the eye and did not die. Instead, I have come away with a freedom that I never knew existed or could ever be mine. I struggle to find the words to explain the metamorphis that is occuring within the deepest parts of my soul and the recesses of my mind, but I continually come up emtpy handed. I try to articulate my way through it all, but it is so difficult. I am obsessed with capturing moments of time, especially these moments of time because they are like none other that I have ever experienced. And no, I am not on drugs. I am certainly high though, high like I have never been. And no, I am not manic either. I have been set free from all those things that I believed would always somehow or someway be attached to me directly or indirectly. It is the most liberating feeling in the world to let go and surrender to the reconstruction of my insides. I gave up trying to think my way out of my own head. It was impossible. I am rambling on and on. But the point in all this- today, I am free. I am free and I am happy. Imagine that.

Has anyone heard about that best-selling addict book A Million Pieces? Supposedly a true story but it turns out . . . NOT! You all have heard of Go Ask Alice, too, right? Same thing there. The editor really wrote the book herself and lied about it!

Now we have a much better read of this sort of human experience and it's even TRUE! Heather Harrison's Yesterday's Warrior!

Here are excerpts from a recent piece on the most recent fraudulent recovery book:




Picking Up the Pieces
How James Frey flunked rehab, and why his fakery matters.
By Seth Mnookin
Posted Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006, at 12:11 PM ET

About a third of the way into A Million Little Pieces, James Frey describes a scene that supposedly occurred at Hazelden, the Minnesota rehab where much of the book's action takes place:
…

… typical of the kind of cliché-ridden portraits that populate Frey's book. There's Frey's one true love, a woman who was, naturally, "tall and thin and long and blond like the thickest silk her eyes blue eyes Arctic eyes." There are the small-minded, small-town cops, "fat stupid Assholes with mustaches and beer guts and badges." There's the book-smart, life-dumb drug counselor, a "grown-up version of a kid who spent his childhood sitting behind a computer hiding from bullies." If a novelist wrote a book run through with these kind of straight-from-Central-Casting chestnuts, he'd be politely told to try again … as Frey says he was, by 17 different publishers, before, Frey says, Doubleday's Nan Talese said she'd publish his novel if he recast it as a memoir.But as just about everyone in America knows by now, courtesy of a careful investigation of his supposed grim exploits conducted by the Smoking Gun, Frey's book turns out to be just that, fiction. Or as Frey himself might put it, A Million Little Pieces is a compendium of "bullshit fantasies" …

Unfortunately, because A Million Little Pieces—one of the best-selling books about drug addiction ever written—has been trumpeted as an unflinching, real-life look into the world of a drug addict, it has helped to shape people's notions about drug abuse. Ironically, the very abundance of its clichés has likely helped make it a runaway best seller: People, after all, like having their suspicions confirmed. For nonaddicts, Pieces reinforces the still dangerously prevalent notion that it's easy to spot a drug addict or an alcoholic—they're the ones bleeding from holes in their cheeks or getting beaten down by the police or doing hard time with killers and rapists. For those struggling with their own substance-abuse issues, Pieces sends the message that unless you've reached the depths Frey describes, you don't have anything to worry about—you're a Fraud. And if you do have a problem, you don't need to necessarily get treatment or look to others for support; all you need to do is "hold on."

In building up a false bogeyman—the American recovery movement's supposed reliance on the notion of "victimhood"—Frey has set himself up as the one, truth-telling savior. In fact, it seems clear that Frey would have been well-served by taking the kind of unflinchingly honest look at his own life that most recovery programs demand.

http://www.slate.com/id/2134203/?nav=ais

Funny that you posted this Gail cuz everyone that I know asks me if I have read his book. I have. In fact, I read it right before I left for Mississippi. Right after I had signed a contract with you. I have not heard that it wasn't true. Although I had my suspicions. Mostly, because the characters that he describes are not the people you would typically see at Hazeldon. Hazeldon is a luxary resort for most addicts. (I'm not dishing on Hazeldon). But only people with money end up getting the privlege to go to treatment at such havens. Those without money, the skid row junkies and criminals like Frey describes in his book, do not end up at Hazeldon. We end up in prisons or treatment facilities with hard mattresses resting on metal frames that are secured to the ground and eat our meals in cafeterias which you have to be the first in line for or you might miss out on the food. I am not saying that the individuals at treatment centers like Hazeldon don't suffer from addictions. However, most of them blew 20,000 dollar trust funds on cocaine while the rest of us did God know's what to get the money to get high. Me, sold myself to the highest paying dirty old man get high. Anyway, my point being that the characters he describes at Hazeldon would never actually make it to Hazeldon. I wonder if Opera knows that his book isn't actually true?? I guess he's been on her show a couple of times about his book. I also hear over and over again, why aren't you on Opera? Maybe she didn't like our video

That's funny that we both posted earlier at the same time, crossing paths so to speak!

I didn't even know the book had been out that long cuz I only started hearing about it maybe in the past half year. Yeah, now everybody knows the guy's book isn't for real. His publisher first got the book as fiction; author told her it was "based on" his experiences. She said she'd only publish it as memoir, so the unethical stuff is on the publisher, too! I think that's pretty bad! ESPECIALLY since so many people can write real memoirs on addiction!

Yeah, the next book out, too, is similar to yours in some ways--Alysa read some of the big sellers about cutting out there and was like "What?!?" That's cuz hers is way superior to ANY of them, seriously! She really gets inside of it enough so that even people with no experience of such things might understand a bit. Just like yours, which is the best I've ever seen for being inside of both recovery and of repressed abuse (or whatever you psychology people want to call it ). I love the books we've been putting out but we just need to get the marketing bit down... I told Scott, too, not to expect much of anything in sales until Sean's book hits the country and people look at us...

I'm sure Oprah never saw our video, just her underlings. I still like the idea of us going to Chicago and doing something kinda out there to get her attention, you know? Yeah, I'm serious! (She said that despite some stuff not really being true in Pieces, the basic truths in it still hold?!?)

Oh, and happy 27th B-Day!!!! I'm sure there were years you never thought you'd get to see this. Let alone as you wwere about to get your doctoral degree !!! I'm glad you're doing so well growing and learning and living !

Just wanted to drop by and say hello. I can't say much cuz I'm in the clinic at school right now. But I can't log on to the website from home any longer. Seems I've been banned! I haven't been banned from anything in awhile Although, I know this one was unintentional. Gail, perhaps in all of our spare time that the two of us have, we should take some computer classes? Neither of us seem to do very well with these damn things. Anyway, life is good. Some very interesting things have happened lately but I don't have time at the moment (and someone is coming). Bye!

I told the Mangled about the situation. It is weird. Something must've happened in the last week or two, but I dunno what yet... I've banned maybe half a dozen IP addresses (electronic addresses of individual computers) but I swear they're all from around here and no new ones for at least a month. So it's a mystery. (So far.)

I love computers--don't know how I ever lived without 'em--but I also hate the sneaky, troublesome suckers!

Hey girl, I am really interested to see how you like this next book. (I think you will! There are similarities to yours, too...)

I am excited to see this next book. I am pretty sure there will be some similiarities. Guess what? I actually posted on Oprah's website about Frey's book. He just pisses me off. Not real sure why he wouldn't just write his book as fiction. There was no need to write a fake memoir unless there was a monetary gain in doing so which obviously there was. I have a very hard time by people that are so motivated by money. Especially those that exploit real illnesses and issues in order to do so. Oprah said his message still had some hope. Sure. But it's the same kind of hope that I used to get from the treatment center counselors who told me that everything was going to be okay and I could survive my life. That's really easy to say if your biggest problem is a damn hang nail. Before I rant any further, I'll say farewell. However, I still can't log on at home!

I LOVE ! that you posted on Oprah's website! That kind of stuff really pisses me off, too! I'm pissed at the publisher as much as the author, though. Things are already so damn FAKE in the world. There's a kind of thing going on with memoirs being popular, and apparently fake memoirs make just as money, so they don't give a rip. But there are so very many REAL people with REAL stories to tell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And you know what? I think that deep down, people can tell the difference with fake stories. At least the ones who give a rip. Or who have real experience themselves. Same with therapists/counselors--You're gonna be dynamite cuz you've actually been there and they'll KNOW IT! You won't have to just SAY "everything is going to be okay/you'll survive." You'll be there living and breathing--having survived yourself--and knowing how to HEAR them. We need lots more people like you out there.

What constitutes "essential truth," anyway?

… The NYT reports that other aspects of James Frey's "memoir" A Million Little Pieces could be, well, lies. A former counselor at the rehab center that Frey allegedly went to approached producers on the Oprah Winfrey Show before the author was set to appear on the show to tell them that the depiction of his experience wasn't exactly true. Since then, other counselors who worked there have also come forward to contest Frey's allegations. These latest accusations now put what Frey has called the "essential truth" of the book into question.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/books/24frey.html?pagewanted=print


In case you can't access the article there, here are the main points... (The NYT now wants everyone to pay for any of their articles .)


But more than three months before questions were raised about Mr. Frey's memoir by the Smoking Gun Web site (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) - before, in fact, Ms. Winfrey first had Mr. Frey as a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" - producers at the program were told by a former counselor at the foundation that runs the Minnesota treatment center reportedly used by Mr. Frey that his portrayal of his experience there grossly distorted reality.

Several other addiction counselors who formerly worked for the organization, the Hazelden Foundation, which runs the Hazelden rehabilitation center in Center City, Minn., have also come forward to dispute Mr. Frey's claims about Hazelden. The accusations call into question what Mr. Frey has labeled the "essential truth" of his book, the "420 of the 432 pages" that take place during treatment. It was Mr. Frey's story of redemption that led Ms. Winfrey to make "A Million Little Pieces" a selection for her television book club and propelled it to sales of more than two million copies.

After receiving the information from Debra Jay, a Michigan addiction counselor who herself has been a frequent guest on Ms. Winfrey's program, a senior producer for the "The Oprah Winfrey Show" conducted an extensive interview with Ms. Jay. It is not known if Ms. Winfrey was apprised of the concerns, but she made no mention of the potential discrepancies in her many on-the-air comments about "A Million Little Pieces," including when she called the book "all completely true" on her program and told Mr. Frey, "I don't doubt you."

…

"His description of treatment at Hazelden is almost entirely false," said Ms. Jay, who trained as an addiction counselor at Hazelden's operations in Minnesota and who is the co-author of two guides to treating addiction published by the Hazelden Foundation. She has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" at least six times to discuss issues related to alcohol and drug addiction.

Ms. Jay said she voiced her objections about "A Million Little Pieces" to a senior producer for Ms. Winfrey's program on Oct. 1, nearly a month before Ms. Winfrey's interview with Mr. Frey was broadcast. "I'm coming forward because his descriptions of treatment are so damaging," Ms. Jay said. "These are things that could not happen to anybody at Hazelden or at any reputable licensed treatment center."

Among the episodes she and the other former counselors have called into question are Mr. Frey's claims of being physically abused by other residents of the treatment center, of being left to sleep on the floor of a common room overnight after an altercation, of regularly vomiting blood and of having his nose rebroken and set by a doctor. "He describes a level of medical care that would not occur at Hazelden," Ms. Jay said. "He would have been taken to an emergency room, and any violent behavior would have been met with a discharge."
..

Carol Colleran, who worked for 17 years in the Hazelden system, including two years at the Minnesota locations, said that unlike Mr. Frey's contention on "Larry King Live" that only about 5 percent of his book is in dispute, "98 percent of that book is false" in its descriptions of how Hazelden works.

Ms. Colleran, now a certified addiction professional in West Palm Beach, Fla., said she sent her complaints about the book to the Winfrey program by e-mail in November. Ms. Colleran also posted questions about the book on Amazon.com that month.

"I have had young people say to me that if they had a child who was having problems, they would never send them to treatment after reading that book," Ms. Colleran said.
…

"I told James that I've been there, that I worked there and I've never seen any of those things happen at Hazelden," Mr. Curtiss said. "In a million years those things would not happen at Hazelden. He said that was his recollection, but that he changed the names."

Mic Hunter, a psychologist who worked for four years at Hazelden-related treatment centers in Minnesota, said Mr. Frey's book made him angry. "It's hard enough for people to get accurate information about treatment because of all the confidentiality rules," he said. "So many people have negative feelings about treatment to begin with. Why would anybody want to send anyone to a treatment program where they would be treated like this? He is claiming it is true, but it's not."

And... Heather, remember that woman you spoke with a few months ago? I just contacted them again and suggested something with REAL addiction memoirs ! And that's at least a possibility !

I was wondering when Hazeldon was going to make a statement. Unfortunately, things like Frey described in his books do occasionally happen at treatment centers. But like I said earlier, things like that do not occur at Hazeldon. It is a very well funded treatment center and as such, they have the money to take really good care of their patients. Frey's descriptions about treatment at Hazeldon are what raised my eyebrows in the first place. I'm not sure how I feel about Oprah knowing beforehand. Hmm... makes me reconsider my opinion about her. Hopefully we'll hear something from you know who. My memoir is real! My experience of addiction actually occurred. I am a real survivor. Now Frey will make everybody question every memoir that is written for a long time. He has tainted the rest of us who actually have a real story to tell because we want to help people rather than just exploit people for money.

Heather

Mea culpa! This space cadet got spacey and forgot to get home in time to tape Oprah, sorry. (She had Frey back on cuz of all the talk about his lies.) I did at least catch the last 5-10 minutes and can tell you that Frey is an OBVIOUS old-hand con. You can see it all over his face and in his eyes. And Oprah was trying to wrap up his "confession" but had to prompt him to use the word "lied." He was swimming all around that, even reminded me of Bush ... I ended up, esp after reading these bits I'm gonna post below, being disappointed in not only the whole publishing industry but in Oprah as well. I mean, her own people were given info before she had Frey on initially that he was a fraud!

Anyway...

Oprah feels duped, Frey admits lying
By Matt Liddy. Posted: Friday, January 27 2006 .

Oprah Winfrey has changed her mind about James Frey and his memoir, A Million Little Pieces. Shortly after The Smoking Gun investigated Frey's memoir and found it was full of "a million little lies", Oprah - who had hawked the memoir through her book club - told Larry King "that the underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me" and that she would still recommend the book.

But now Oprah has had Frey back on her own show, and told him: "I really feel duped, but more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."

"I made a mistake," Winfrey said of her earlier comments about the book. "I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that because that is not what I believe."

Gawker reports that Winfrey was visibly angry as she confronted Frey, and that the audience actually booed the author when he said he wrote the book from memory.

The New York Times has published the full transcript of the Winfrey-Frey showdown, and it shows that Oprah indeed goes after him on a lot of the specific allegations raised by The Smoking Gun. Though Frey maintains throughout the interview that his book is a memoir, not a novel, he admits to making "mistakes". The key exchange, though, comes when Oprah puts it to him like this:

OPRAH WINFREY: Do you see the mistakes as lies? Because you--you--you know, I think I made a mistake. I think I made a mistake by leaving the impression that the truth doesn't matter, because that's not how I look. I think that's a mistake. I don't think I lied. So do you think you lied, or do you think you made a mistake?

JAMES FREY: I--I think probably both.

So, finally, Frey admits to lying, not just making mistakes. And as he does so, some are suddenly shifting their sympathies his way.







http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate/200601/s1556353.htm


Below is an excerpt from The Smoking Gun, which did the original investigation showing that almost all the "bad boy drama" in his book was totally fabricated. And I can't believe what he did to them, the scumbag !!! I give this guy NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER!!!!

When TSG confronted him Friday (1/6) afternoon with our findings, Frey refused to address the significant conflicts we discovered between his published accounts and those contained in various police reports. When we suggested that he might owe millions of readers and Winfrey fans an explanation for these discrepancies, Frey, now a publishing powerhouse, replied, "There's nothing at this point can come out of this conversation that, that is good for me."

It was the third time since December 1 that we had spoken with Frey, who told us Friday that our second interview with him, on December 14, had left him so "rattled" that he went out and hired Los Angeles attorney Martin Singer, whose law firm handles litigation matters for A-list stars like Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Britney Spears. While saying that he had initially asked his counsel not to send us a pre-publication legal letter, Frey apparently relented late Friday night. That's when Singer e-mailed us a five-page letter threatening a lawsuit (and the prospect of millions in damages) if we published a story stating that Frey was "a liar and/or that he fabricated or falsified background as reflected in 'A Million Little Pieces.'"

I once write an expose that a national magazine decided not to print when the powerful, monied bastards I was exposing threatened a lawsuit, because, as the editor explained, they couldn't even afford to win a lawsuit. (The whole point; things really do work that way!)

On Saturday evening, Frey published on his web site an e-mail we sent him earlier in the day requesting a final interview. That TSG letter also detailed many topics we discussed with him in our first two interviews, both of which were off the record. We consider this preemptive strike on Frey's part as a waiver of confidentiality and, as such, this story will include some of his remarks during those sessions, which totaled about 90 minutes. Frey explained that he was posting our letter to inform his fans of the "latest attempt to discredit me...So let the haters hate, let the doubters doubt, I stand by my book, and my life, and I won't dignify this bullshit with any sort of further response."

Only someone who lives by lies would have the absolute chutzpah to say this BS knowing Smoking Gun had done solid research!

This was, Frey wrote, "an effort to be consistent with my policy of openness and transparency." Strangely, this policy seemed to have lapsed in recent weeks when Frey, in interviews with TSG, repeatedly refused to talk on the record about various matters, declined our request to review "court" and "criminal" records he has said he possesses, and continued to peddle book tales directly contradicted by various law enforcement records and officials.

But during these interviews, Frey did, for the first time, admit that he had embellished central details of his criminal career and purported incarceration for "obvious dramatic reasons" in the nonfiction work. He also admitted to taking steps, around the time "A Million Little Pieces" was published in hardcover in 2003, to legally expunge court records related to the seemingly most egregious criminal activity of his lifetime. That episode--a violent, crack-fueled confrontation with Ohio cops that resulted in a passel of serious felony charges--is a crucial moment in "A Million Little Pieces," serving as a narrative maypole around which many other key dramatic scenes revolve and depend upon for their suspense and conflict. Frey has repeatedly asserted in press interviews that the book is "all true" and he told Winfrey, "I think I wrote about the events in the book truly and honestly and accurately."


http://www.thesmokinggun.com/jamesfrey/0104061jamesfrey1.html


Dressed in a velvet jacket, Oprah sat Frey down on her sectional couch and posed the questions any thoughtful interviewer would about the veracity of AMLP. Frey was slightly more forthright than he had been in his self-righteous Larry King performance. Yet he still gave the impression of a kid in the principal's office, one who is resigned to the fact of his suspension but is trying to say what everyone wanted to hear in hopes of getting it shortened. Because he was in a proper venue for psychobabble, he flung some low-grade spin at the issue of his falsifications: "I think part of what happened with a number of things in the book is when you go through an experience like the one I went through, you develop different coping mechanisms, and I think one of the coping mechanisms I developed was sort of this image of myself that was probably greater than—not probably, it was greater than I actually was."
It was cute that he tried.

The sectional kept expanding—first for publisher Talese, then Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, then the New York Times' Frank Rich. They talked about Frey as if he were a troublesome puppy. After a while, there was little for him to do but sip his water and wait for the episode to end. Via videotape, Joel Stein, Stanley Crouch, and Maureen Dowd piled on, too—a full flock of pundits! Oprah showered Cohen with thanks for writing a column titled "Oprah's Grand Delusion." She had defiled herself by condoning Frey's lies and then seen the light, and op-ed wizards from coast to coast attended as she scourged herself. It was riveting television.

As James Frey will tell you, everyone loves a good story of redemption.

http://www.slate.com/id/2134926/?nav=ais