Product Description

Mark Johnson's father had 'LOVE' tattooed across his left hand, but that didn't stop the beatings. The Johnson children would turn up to school with broken fingers and chipped teeth, but no one ever thought of investigating their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks, and kept on falling. For years. Constantly in trouble at school, Mark began stealing at the age of seven, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin aged eleven. A sensitive, intelligent boy, he could never stay on the right path, and though Art College beckoned, he ended up in Portland prison instead. With searing honesty, WASTED documents Mark's descent into the depths of addiction and criminality. Homeless, hooked on heroin and crack, no one - least of all Mark - believed he would survive. And yet - astonishingly - he somehow pulled himself through, and now runs his own thriving tree surgery business, employing and helping other recovering addicts. His story is at once shocking and inspiring - a compelling account of his struggle to save himself, and help save others in the process.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29033 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'As gripping as it is appalling, WASTED is all you could ask of a misery-and-trauma book - it's shocking and it's haunting and it's about one hell of a life' DAILY MAIL, Critic's Choice

About the Author
Mark Johnson was born in the West Midlands in 1970. After years of drug and alcohol abuse, he finally became clean six years ago. He now runs his tree surgery business and helps other recovering addicts.

Customer Reviews

Brave, breathtaking, brutally honest
Lazy labels like `misery memoir' are slapped onto books of varying quality. Mark Johnson's Wasted, based on his life on the streets, is in a class of its own. It's a harrowing tale with a happy ending and a strong but far from simple message. Mark is an amazing success story, someone who, after years of abuse and addiction, offending and sleeping rough, has gone on to become living proof that rehab works. You could also say he's an example of the wisdom that comes with experience. In telling his own story, Mark is telling the story of other young people, and it's no surprise his ideas about mentoring are now being taken seriously by the probation service in England and Wales. There's nothing self-serving about his recollections, no denial, no preaching. This is the real deal from a writer who is bigger than the story he's telling, and with a story as powerful and compelling as this that's saying something. When Johnson talks about the world he came from, the one he left behind, and the one he wants to help others out of, his writing has the passing bell ring of truth. "Pranged is the tuning fork that never stops vibrating", Johnson says of the comedown from crack, "Pranged is fingernails on metal dustbin lids. Pranged is your body and mind being cut open and exposed to everything sharp in the world", and "pranged" is what the reader feels after putting down this brave, breathtaking, brutally honest book.

Raw, vivid, powerful
"Wasted" is a book that will stop you in your tracks. It's no-holds-barred account of a violent childhood and adult life on the streets is at times painful to read. But its a read that you can't put down and which forces you to turn the page... then the next... and then the next.
Its exactly right that Amazon have paired the book with "Abandoned" by Anya Peters. I've read both and they complement each other perfectly - one describing homelessness and childhood suffering from a male perspective the other giving a female point of view.
Two aspects of both books stand out for me. An eye for the telling detail of everyday life that says so much more than a lengthy descirption. And the voice of the central characters which come across so distinctly. Its as though you are there on the streets yourself: in "Wasted" sleeping rough in doorways, looking for that next fix, in "Abandoned" living in your car, trying to maintain a pretence of normality when your situation is anything but. I couldn't say one book is better than the other. Read them both and its an experience you won't forget.

Stunningly Honest
A stunningingly honest account of Mr Johnsons life growing up in a home where he was not loved in the conventional sense. The book then goes on to depict in vivid prose how he went on to become a heroin and crack cocaine addict and his life living on the streets of Central London. Towards the end of this book Mark receives help and enters into rehabilitation and at last the reader gets a sense that this young man will eventually be able to live a happier, more healthy fulfilled life. Truly one off the most honest accounts I have read in years.