Armed with two bits of advice from a former heroin addict–“Don’t get high” and “Change your whole fucking life around”–Elhajj climbed the twelve steps to recovery. Not without falling down a rung or two, but this is a twelve-step success story, one that should encourage others that there is a way out of addiction for those who really want it… Recovery programs are only as good as the desire of the addict to get clean, and relapses abound. But Elhajj had finally reached a point where he wanted to be clean more than he wanted the heroin he shot into his veins.
Ruth Douillette, on Dopefiend: A Father’s Journey From Addiction to Redemption for The Internet Review of Books