When Drug Addition grabs you by the throat and won't let go.

The book I am reviewing was heartbreaking and made me totally cry. I have never ever been unfortunate enough to have anything to do with this subject matter Thank God but I have heard stories of how painful it is. Like always my post does have spoilers. Please feel free to comment on the post. 

For The Love of Alex J. E. Hopkins

Alex is the typical drug addict who will trade anything and everything to fuel his need for drugs. He is so lost in life and has lost so much due to his drug habit that he doesn't even think he deserves better. Leah comes across as a strong character whose only flaw is that she loves Alex blindly and will do anything for him. The book does not sugar coat the struggle that happens in rehab, but it gives one hope that it is possible to return from the path of doom and start over.

"I have never taken an illegal drug in my life, yet drugs have taken away so much of my life. They have left me raw and alone. They’ve broken my heart, crushed my spirit, seized my light, and blinded me with darkness. Drugs have left me in pieces that no longer fit together. This is what it feels like to love an addict. This is what it feels like when an addict loves his drugs more than you."

From the moment she first laid eyes on him, Leah knew her heart would eternally belong to Alex. At three-years-old on her first day of school, she met her soul mate. For the past eighteen years, their love stays strong prevailing over every barrier determined to break them apart. But now a new, sinister foe threatens to destroy them the white powder, heroin. 

Alex is torn between the love that consumes his heart and the white powder that devours his mind. Unable to escape the call of the white powder, heroin leads Alex down a dark path to destruction while Leah fights to save her childhood love before they both drown in his disease of addiction.

This book is so heartbreaking painful to read especially if you had to deal with this in your own life. What poor Alex had to go through as a kid because his mother was a drug addict should never ever happen. His mother druggie friends shot heroin into his veins when he was three and on top of that, he was born premature and came out into the world addicted. He lived a hard life of fighting off the urges of this terrible drug that was forced into his body before he even knew what it was. Yet, he could not outrun it for a very long time even when he found his true love Leah he treated him so badly cause of his addiction and he dug he a hole that he could not get out by himself.

Leah was trying to support Alex and help him while graduating college and getting a job at an online newspaper wherein her weekly blog post would write about drug addiction to open up the eyes of young people and tell them the realities of what happens to the lives of people who are affected by it. She has to help Alex off the ledge so many times that it drains on her heart and soul but she cannot face the fact that her love alone will not save him. She can not fathom ever leaving him either she loves him dearly and promised to never leave him like everyone else in his life did.

He tried to go to rehab on his own but only stayed there two weeks until the drugs called and he got kicked out. His salvation came in the least unexpected way. Leah became pregnant even though she was on birth control she was shocked and surprised when she found out because she assumed she was sick for some other reason. She even accused Alex of giving her some kind of STD which he got very upset about and life the doctor's office. Now that Leah is fighting for two she wants to protect her baby. When her doctor called and told her they had video footage of Alex stealing needles she got irate and packed his bags and got angry at him when he came home from supposedly looking for a job. 

He tried to lie to her and say he was not using again but she knew better and then finally kicked him out saying she had to think about what was best for their child. It hurt her to have him leave but it was the best solution she could not let him bring her down anymore and she did not need the stress for her baby. She turned to her friend Claire and boss Marcus for solace and comfort as friends. She realized that her boss wanted more than friendship but she is so in love with Alex and concentrating on taking care of herself she had no time or need for any romantic endeavors. Leah even decided she needed counseling herself because she was codependent and addicted to Alex and needed to learn who she was on her own without him. 

She gets a phone call one night from the hospital and she is frantically worried about what she will find when she gets there. She is happy and grateful he was alive after he overdosed. Alex finally stopped lying to Leah and told the candid truth of the whole sorted story of why he left the rehab facility so early. He was kicked out by breaking the rules and taking drugs from another patient in exchange for sex and never really was clean. He was so hopeless and distraught telling her to forget about him that he is not worth saving and he only brings him down to hell with him. 

Later Leah finds out more about Mr. Grant Derverson's owner of the newspaper The Gazette where she works that he once struggled with drug addiction himself. One day at the paper after Leah wrote a heartfelt letter on her blog to Alex pouring out all her frustration and cursing the deadly powder of heroin but saying through all the pain and sorrow she still loved the man that the drug took away from her and she even e-mailed it to Alex not knowing where he was or how he was doing. Then out of the blue one day, Leah's mom shows up at her apartment she has no seen or spoke to her in years because of her relationship with Alex. 

Leah soon learns her mother not just a stone cold-hearted bitch who does not know how to love but just did not know how to show it because of how she was raised by a drunken mother and then left to be cared for by her grandparents. We all have scars that mold and shape our lives that have to be dealt with when we become adults. Then before Christmas Leah's boss, Marcus wanted to show her a letter wrote to her blog from Alex given to him by Grant Derverson. She was confused about how they got this letter and it turns out Grant helped Alex get into a rehab treatment program that would last 90 days and then he was to go to a sober-living program or as I heard them called a halfway house. 

So finally Alex was getting the help he needed to cast off the shackles that the drugs put him in and learn to live without the crutch of Leah and her love to survive on his own. So he can be a good and responsible husband and father. They got to talk on the phone and e-mail each other. Well, the new year came and it was Valentine's Day and Leah was a lunch with her mother when she started having labor pains and Leah knew it was time to get to the hospital. She told them she wanted to have a natural birth with no drugs cause it already took up so much of her life.

While Leah was waiting for her water to break she gets an unexpected visitor Alex shows up because her mother Francesca Rhodes talked to Grant who allowed Alex to leave rehab to be there to witness the birth of his daughter. Once the baby was born and Alex held her it was love at first sight and the world had another daddy's girl. Soon Leah was taking Sienna to see Alex in the sober living home he was doing really well getting his life back together but there was one thing he had to do first to be completely whole. He had to go see his mother in jail and finally put what she did to him so many years ago behind him and look to the future. This meeting was very stressful and a bit unnerving but he finally was about to say his peace and forgive his mom and say her painting and realized how much he missed it and had his closure. 

It was now May and Leah wished her and Alex could be living under the same roof but he still needed to work out his issues. Alex had planned a special afternoon for her at her old job at the diner. He decided to propose again and then finally got married she wrote one more blog post and dedicated to her daughter saying she basically saved their lives because they now had something to live and fight for. So the couple finally got the Happily Ever After and the family they wanted and the love they deserved.    

This book shows how hard life with drug addiction can be and how it affects more than just the person using and abusing the drug. So for everyone out there who is struggling or did struggle you can read this book and know that if you seek out to get the right kind of help you a beat and defeat it even when the road is a hard success is so sweet when you are finally released and free of it. If you want to know more about this nasty deadly illegal drug that takes people's lives away everyday go to http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/heroin.html