Reviews for A Vicious Cycle

This is certain to become a classic. The author tells a compelling story of courage and wisdom. For anyone fighting an addiction this is the book for you. This is Witte’s maiden voyage as an author, and I can’t wait for his next book. It is extremely well-written and full of sage bits of wisdom. It’s a book that you will want to read over and over again.

A unique and raw personal story, intermixed with philosophical musings.

This book alternates between a couple of different modes. One is the frank narration of a man rapidly becoming wrapped up in a relationship that puts his intense denial about his relations with others into sharp contrast. The other is a set of philosophical essays; the life of the narrator revolves around AA meetings, and each meeting features an exposition on one aspect or another of the program as seen by the author.

This book is a wonderful piece of unpolished prose writing. It is a smooth and easy read; I whipped through it in a day, which is not something I often do. A bus-rider’s view of urban San Francisco comes to life in these pages. There are many brief, semi-resolved transit conflicts, and people stuck in plum rent controlled apartments.

This discourse is striking, and were it to have been written two centuries ago it might have been sub-titled ‘The long trek of a walking wounded towards civilization.’ It is about a young man’s struggle to achieve an at least viable equilibrium that he hopes shall enable to him to live with something approaching peace with himself and those close to him, and sometimes with those near him too. But it hasn’t been easy, and is described in what is in effect a journal that casts its net wide to include, for example, a dialogue with religion and faith as a leitmotiv that carries on throughout a startling story. The writer is a raconteur, and the book is written with a breezy candour that makes De Quincy’s ‘Confessions of an English opium eater’ look the model of self-effacing reticence. Which it wasn’t. Progressing through the book one finds himself exclaiming. ‘He said what? To whom? Really? Oh, wow.’ But yes, the reader goes back and, sure enough, he really did. We all have what Wolf Mankovitz called pillow-biters: recollections of things one has said and done that still, down the decades, occasion exquisite mortification in their unwilling recollection. Most of us do what we can to dig a deep hole in which to bury those memories, and heave a heavy slab over the top. Not, of course, that this ever works: out they climb, ready to ambush at the next opportunity that presents itself. But Justin has enough of these moments to shred an entire department store of pillows, and has had the courage to lay these out in etched, vivid, detail.

There is a very human inconsistency in his internal debate about religion: he perfectly correctly describes the history of the latitude that organized religions allow their believers to engage with complete self-righteousness in the most appalling fashion, on a massive scale, towards their fellow human beings, and correctly decides he’ll none of it. But then he tells us that, this notwithstanding, faith in a christian god has helped him. But he has needed to find strength to recover, and well, whatever works. Again, there’s honesty there.

And the people in his story! But then, he is writing about San Francisco.
Justin’s journey continues but, walking wounded as he remains, his account shows how far he has his peregrination has taken him. His discussion of what he has read along the way invites, though I do not know if this in intentional, his readers to consider its applicability to their own lives. The book will certainly prompt one to consider his own life and its realities in comparison with his. I am confident that it is very unlikely you will come across another book like this one.

Personal musings and reminiscences paired with a solid understanding of how fearfulness acts a barrier to engaging with oneself or anyone else in a fruitful way. The stories are engaging, real and at times cringeworthy. The end result is a very positive and hopeful book on maintaining sobriety and becoming the person you want to be.

Vicious cycle is a concise and to the point autobiography of a person diagnosed with aspergers. It’s a life of anger, chemical dependency, and Heart ache. Highly recommend to anyone dealing with aspergers or chemical dependency. It is a window into the mind of a person with this condition, because that’s the person who wrote it.

An inspiring story about love, addiction, change and finding the ability to walk away. This book will make you think about philosophical ideas while a love story heartbreakingly plays along step by step. A must read for anyone wanting a thought provoking experience.