Posts Tagged ‘Hep C Memoir’

Headed To The Hurricane… Amelia Island, Family Vacation

Posted: August 25, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I used to not be invited on family vacations so I am grateful to be included, I just hope that Hurricane Irene stays off the coast of Georgia and we at least get a few days of sunshine.

It’s been a tough few days in my sobriety as I’ve dealt with being laid off for the 3rd time in 3 years, and it’s finally dawned on me that the reason I’d left my company, to join corporate America, was for job security. Oh the irony. I mean here I am looking at the last 3 layoffs where I’ve done relatively well, and in some cases better than most, and yet for one reason or another was let go, and lo and behold that premise of job security, no longer exists. So I’ve been brainstorming again about starting my old gig back up, corporate recruiting, or the headhunting game. Sure it’s a challenge with 9% unemployment, but hell, so is finding a job.

Had a few decent interviews this week but again, my redneck past always comes back to bite me in the ass. Bar fights and DUI’s however old, show up on background checks, even 10 years later, which incidentally is fucking bullshit, but whatever. The romantic notion of joining the Army too has lost a bit of luster, though I found I can join with my heart murmur, I can not do the job I really wanted to do which is Helicopter Pilot, so in essence, I could be a bullet stopper to I earn a security clearance to do something more exciting like Intelligence Analyst or even Medical route, eventually shooting for Doctor, but again, it’s a long hard road, and I’m not as sure about that as I was the idea of flying into hot lz’s… still the idea of carrying a gun and getting to fire it and getting paid for it, all while earning a tuition to college does appeal… I mean especially if economy takes another downward spiral. Especially, especially if that spiral quickens and the country’s problems go off a cliff, the Army is a safe place to stay employed, and i mean it’s still 20 years and a pension. It’s a lot to consider.

No matter what though, as always, I’ve found I’ve had my program to fall back on and guide me through the murky waters of indecision and the occasional thoughts of self-pity I’ve experienced while going through this transition. It’s crazy really, I never had these employment issues while drinking and drugging and I used to SMOKE ICE IN THE PARKING GARAGE WHILE WEARING A SUIT AND TIE! Haha, I mean fuck. I really thought my career would be the last of my worries in sobriety, and yet here I am. Still, I’d take this job insecurity over that monkey on my back any day of the week. And like yesterday, when I went to a meeting, listening to Paul, battling cancer, and homelessness, a man who was told he had weeks to live over 4 years ago, I don’t have that much to complain about. My self-pity is just pure selfishness. I have a perfectly healthy body, and my life has gotten better and better. Sure I don’t have the love of my life, or the career of my dreams or even a living situation that I’m comfortable with, but it sure as fuck beats what I came in the program with and all 12 committee voices in my head would have agreed.

So I’ll just keep on keeping on. Go to the beach and hope the hurricane stays offshore and pray that God guides me to the career in which I can serve him most usefully, whatever that may be. I also pray that all those I’ve met in the last 4 years or so who’ve gone back out, somehow make it back and survive the chaos and destruction of that terrible cycle. There have been so many good people over the years, and no matter what has happened, I hope they all make it back healthy and without too much more damage. Met a really cool guy who works in the movie industry in the last couple of weeks, and then as happens in our program, he just seems to have disappeared, and it really blows. So many talented people struggle with this beast, but I just have to remember, I didn’t get it my first time either.

The same God that got me sober is watching over us all, so I pray they all make it back. With God all things are possible! Wish me luck fishing during a hurricane!

-Jared Bryan Smith

Laid Off… That sounds so much better than it really is.

Posted: August 19, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Getting laid, or jerking off, now that sounds at least moderately enjoyable… but being laid off, just blows. In sobriety I’ve now been laid off three times in less than 3 years. This never happened to me when I was out there drinking and drugging. Now mind you there are some details I’m leaving out. Sure, sure, I was told I am actually free to continue to work, but commission only. I don’t think my car payment or ex wife will accept such terms however, and therefore I’ve been looking for work all week long. I’m fortunate in that I do have a good solid ten years of recruiting experience under my belt and I’ve had a few nibbles.

I tell you also, the romantic notion of becoming a soldier continues to haunt my conscience. I have always romanticized the horrors of war. I have studied history, read dozens of books, and know academically how horrendous, monotonous, boring and terrifying war can be. I know the stats of double and triple amputees coming out of Afghanistan, especially those of Infantry, where I imagine myself going, and I know that this time last year we’d seen an increase of IED’s up to about 1000 and that this year that number is already at 1800 or almost double. It also seems they have something more potent taking helicopters out of the sky though nobody is about to admit that publicly. I know all these facts like the back of my hand, and yet I can’t escape the notion that I would love to serve, and to fight. I would love to fly helicopters into battle ultimately.

My record is such, bar fights and dui’s etc, that I don’t qualify for Security Clearance to be a medic or a pilot though, so the recruiter tells me I need a good year of good behavior to earn security clearance and then apply for Helicopter Pilot School. And my brain tells me no, but heart tells me yes. I pray for guidance, and I hear no voices, but when I think of the adventure while sitting in church, it’s like  thinking of the woman who slipped away, my heart pounds, adrenaline flows and chills radiate out from my spine through my bloodstream. I love the idea of it all. The journey.

Andrew Jackson once said “I was born in a storm, and a calm does not suit me.”

I know how he feels. I’m having a hard time getting motivated by mere corporate survival and sales goals as of late. Though I know the math is terrible, the odds dismal my age a huge obstacle, I can’t stop thinking I might be happier if I just followed my heart every once in a while instead of listening to my fact filled brain. I will continue to pray about I suppose.

I go back to Hemingway at war, and though I know I’m no Hemingway, you just can’t deny it would give a powerful subject to a voice I now have a lot of faith in. Also with 5k friends under my real name and about 2k friends under Jared Bryan Smith on facebook I could blog and post videos and picture from the war zone that would be mind blowing. Again, food for thought, just some of the things a grandiose alcoholic considers when his career gets sidelined yet again. We shall see.

-Jared Bryan Smith

 

Crazy weird dreams last night…

Posted: August 6, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Then I wake up to the second time in a week where I’ve had an email in my inbox stating “We need to chat.” So last time it turned out to be a very positive thing for the marketing company I work for but this  one was regarding the book, and damn it if I don’t get nervous as hell when someone leaves something like that. Just seems so ominous. “We need to chat” Sounds like a woman getting ready to give you bad news or something, which i why I haven’t had a woman all year, I’m tired of bad news, haha..

Man those dreams were kicking too. After a very long week, I decided not to do anything at all Friday  night but just relax at home and I ended up falling asleep around 11 or so. Had several days in a row of good workouts, I really can’t under emphasize the importance of exercise in sobriety. I’ve noticed I  even began getting depressed if I don’t work out over a few days in a row. The human body was meant to exercise, for 50k years or whatever we had to to eat, and only in the past 100 or so has man been able to provide a living and be stationary, never moving a muscle. Our brain chemistry requires those endorphins in the blood, and I only wish I’d begun adding exercise to my sobriety earlier, because damn if it doesn’t make me much more happier overall… but I digress, so yeah, I crashed hard and slept deep and came up with some very strange dreams.

In my dreams my baby sister, invited me to one of her hot 24 year old friends engagement party or something, and I showed up a little too early. I am not that great at new social situations and I found myself self conscious that my pants were too loose and that someone would see my ass crack. So I drifted away from the party into a laundry room, and in the room, there were several items of clothing scattered around the room, and one of them was a slim narrow chicks belt. That wasn’t going to work, but then I saw some shoe laces. I knelt down to get the shoelaces and in that instant, the pretty 24 year old blonde who was to be married, slid into the room. I stood up surprised and embaressed and in another split second another person came in, this was a guy though, of medium frame, with intelligent frantic looking eyes. Cool and collected he seemed, but egotistical with an aire of superiority, no amount of humility could shake from him. He began mocking the girl who was in tears, and she kept saying, you have to leave , you have to go, and he mocked and taunted her, called her stupid, said he was going that he just wanted to come by and say goodbye. So I stepped up closer, and suddenly as only happens in dreams the shoelaces had become a wire coil, like that you would expect to see exiting a washer/dryer or over, and I was stripping it down, listening to the two of theirs drama. They seemed not to notice me after all, I really did not know either of them very well, but had a loyalty to the girl since it was my sisters friend. I began to tense, if things did get ugly, I knew I could take this guy, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. God knows I didn’t need any charges 4.5 years sober. He was blackmailing her, he was threatening to make a scene if she didn’t let him stay, and instead of being forceful the poor girl was begging and pleading, she was in love, but she didn’t want her new beau to know about her damaged psycho ex past. He was smiling, threatening her, causing her pain, and she was in tears. I was unraveling the coil that I had originally picked up as shoelaces, which made me think of juvenile prison, where they took your laces to prevent suicide. I had removed several layers of wires by now and I had the core to make a belt, but now I also had a canister of air, seemingly a by product of disentangling the wires, and damn if it didn’t look just like an incideniary grenade suddenly. As their arguing reached a crescendo, I pulled the pin, and they both stopped to look at me, while we waited for the detonation. I dropped it in the middle of us, and the guy walked outside of the room we were in, a smug superior smirk on his face. He began walking up to the crowd of people near the center of the house, making exagarrated movements, trying to draw attention to himself and thus emberass the girl. I looked at the girl in tears, worry etched all over her face. I kicked the dud of a grenade to the side, and I went to go talk to the guy, ask him to leave, escort him to the door. He was now messing with a baby in a carriage, in my dream, literally stealing baby from a candy. And then I thought, wait a minute, who gave candy to that baby anyway. Baby’s can’t eat candy, and right when I put my arm on the guys arm to walk him out, I woke up. I have an overactive imagination.

Then I go to my computer and I have a message from a publisher that says “Jared, we need to chat.” It’s gonna be a long day, especially since he’s in a different time zone. Grrrr.

-Jared Bryan Smith

Gregg Allman – Hepatitis C – Latest CNN Interview

Posted: July 14, 2011 in Uncategorized
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I’m too lazy to go look but I wonder if his albums sell under the huge multimedia Time Warner banner?

He STILL denies having gotten the drug through any kind of drug use, and even adds, “It doesn’t much matter how you got it, you got it.” And this is true, but MUCH more people get Hepatitis C now a days via needles and or sharing straws, which never occured to me while I was out there drinking and drugging, than do by using dirty tattoo needles. Ironically, I just returned from Macon GA and for some reason I believe the bucket story now. That probably is exactly how he got it, and ohhh how disgusting.

It is still humble and cool of him to come out and speak about Hep C, and that he’d gotten a liver transplant of a 29 year old liver, and even more shocking I thought, was that the CNN announcer mentions that he still has Hep C, and that he is living with it. So he was not cured of the virus at all? I wonder if they will try and run him through the new Telaprevir with the higher success rates. I hope so, I hope they can clear him of the virus as they did me, but as Dr. Hutchinson from Duke told me “the young do better than the old.” I wonder what his prognosis is for Interferon with the new drugs, and if the liver transplant makes it impossible to go under Interferon or somehow prevents the full blown chemo like side affects? Still, I may have been a little harsh when I blogged about Gregg before, denying any drug use and stating that he’d gotten it from dirty tattoo needles. In the big scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter how you get it, none of us invented the disease, it matters what you do with it, and if you man up and fight it, quit drinking, and persevere through all the long odds to beat the nasty little beat me down.

Still, I’d be happier if he’d use his name to go out and promote free Interferon use with Telaprevir to all, I mean, they shortened the length of time, doubling the odds, but also doubling the cost. Most of us don’t have Rock Star retirement plans. And it’s the kind of thing that with a concentrated government effort, they could eradicate just like polio, instead of just bilking people left and right.

Let me tell you too, if I find out he’s working for Roche or Merck and this was a publicity stunt for some new medication they are charging triple for, and he still couldn’t admit he’d gotten it using needles, then I’ll be just as irritated. Or to find out his rock star royalty got him the transplant liver faster, that would be just as aggravating. On this one it is probably better I don’t do any research. For now, Gregg has my compassion and sympathy and even my thanks for doing this interview, regardless of if it’s connected to his record sales, and/or paid pharma giants, more than likely even if all that was true, his agent just tugged his heart strings and Gregg was just doing what he thought was right.

He’s still one of the baddest musicians ever to walk the planet. I pray his recovery from Hep C and his transplant stays strong and that he’s able to go through the new Interferon treatments with telaprevir and beats it.

-Jared Bryan Smith

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi

Posted: June 29, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Woke up feeling refreshed and recharged, better than I have in several days. Probably because I worked out a small feud with someone whom I really never had anything against to begin with, but whom I did repeat a nasty rumor I’d heard, thus inciting a grudge that lasted way longer than it should have, and had farther reaching ramifications than I could have ever imagined. We made amends to each other and damn if I don’t feel 10 times better for it for my part.

Reminded me of a christian value that I wish I had followed earlier, because it really did bring an instant peace and calm into my life as soon as we were done talking.

Matthew 18:15 “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”

Pretty moving stuff… and just a few sentences later:

Matthew 18:19 “I tell you that if two of you on Earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven. for where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.”

Well that parable to me, sums up the magic of an AA meeting perfectly. For years I would try to get sober all by myself and never get more than 2 weeks, tops, and then my very first half ass try into AA, where two or more people are trying to accomplish the same goal, and lo and behold I was able to stay sober for a month… and that was without getting a sponsor or working any steps… The forgiveness thing, for me anyway, is more in the Masters / Phd realm of AA, as my anger, once up is really hard to get back down… but I don’t have to think my way into right action, I have to act my way into right thinking, and the act of forgiveness, humility and an open conversation with my brother in sobriety, brought about the forgiveness I wouldn’t have thought possible.

And even if you must discount the religious mumbo jumbo, I found science to back the claims as well, the positive affects of forgiveness transcend even religion, and stab deep into the heart of science as well.

“Dr. Robert Enright from the University of Wisconsin–Madison founded the International Forgiveness Institute and is considered the initiator of forgiveness studies. He developed a 20-Step Process Model of Forgiveness.[4] Recent work has focused on what kind of person is more likely to be forgiving. A longitudinal study showed that people who were generally more neurotic, angry and hostile in life were less likely to forgive another person even after a long time had passed. Specifically, these people were more likely to still avoid their transgressor and want to enact revenge upon them two and a half years after the transgression.[5]

Studies show that people who forgive are happier and healthier than those who hold resentments.[6] The first study to look at how forgiveness improves physical health discovered that when people think about forgiving an offender it leads to improved functioning in their cardiovascular and nervous systems.[7] Another study at the University of Wisconsin found the more forgiving people were, the less they suffered from a wide range of illnesses. The less forgiving people reported a greater number of health problems.” 

I am glad it is behind me, once and for all, I truly wish my brother in arms, traveler on Earth with the same disease of addiction as me, the best sobriety has to offer.

Jared Bryan Smith

theaddictedproject.com – Just finished my interview!!

Posted: June 10, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Fun stuff.

Very proud to be on theaddictedproject.com and to be their featured author.

It was a long week, and I was a bit tired and discombobulated, but I think it went over pretty well, we shall see I suppose.

Great questions though.

Writing about personal relationships has definitely been the most taxing and challenging aspect of both the book and the blog and something I never thought of before launching with either. A certain sadness and melancholy arises just thinking over miscommunications, and misunderstandings, but that is what happens when you put your stream of consciousness on display for the world to see. It becomes a target of attack and it’s challenging to learn how to deal with criticism and or people with hurt feelings, especially when you never intended to hurt anyone… ever.

I hope I was able to convey that in the interview. I’m still just learning how to be me, just like all of us sick alcoholics trying to get better. All I have is today, and every day is a journey, and a challenge….

Wow…. and just like that it’s all worth while…. phone call from a friend who just cleared the virus using Interferon… just like that it’s all worth while. He’s read the book, and he’s now well on his way to being Hep C free. It’s all good.

Life is good, and miracles are abound in the program of AA. Where else could a drunk like me find friends, lol.

So sweet, I don’t know how long before the interview will be up on theaddictedproject.com but surely not too long so keep coming back and if you see it before me poke me on facebook or something… you can poke the publisher  too and he’ll notify me… 😉 thanks yall, have a great weekend.

-Jared Bryan Smith

Comprehensive List of Celebrities with Hepatitis C : My personal fav, Linda Lovelace, awww yeah, haha…

Posted: March 19, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Country music icon Naomi Judd opens up about being diagnosed with hepatitis C.

For more information, visit http://www.thedoctorstv.com/

Several public figures suffer from hepatitis C and some have died. Celebrities with hepatitis C, according to news reports:

• Gregg Allman Rock musician and founding member of The Allman Brothers Band

• Pamela Anderson: She is perhaps the best-known hepatitis C patient, if only because the former Baywatch star has such a flair for publicity. Her revelation last year that she had the disease prompted innumerable news stories.

• Keith Richards–Guitarist/singer/songwriter/producer and founding member of the Rolling Stones. He claims that due to the strength of his immune system he beat hepatitis C by leaving his body to deal with it

• Ray Benson–Front man of the Austin Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel. Benson chose to treat his hepatitis C with Eastern medicine.

• Steven Tyler–Musician and songwriter in the rock band Aerosmith. In September 2006, he announced that he had been diagnosed three years previous and had just completed eleven months of treatment with interferon.

• Natalie Cole–Singer and daughter of Nat King Cole. She was diagnosed in mid-2008 during a routine examination.

• Willy DeVille One of the founders of the band Mink DeVille and a pioneer in punk rock. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in February 2009 and was found to have pancreatic cancer during the course of his treatment

• Anthony Kiedis–American vocalist/lyricist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. He contracted Hepatitis C from regular intravenous drug use in the early 1990s and claims he was cured of the Hep C virus by Ozone therapy

• Naomi Judd: The former nurse and country singer has been one of the best-known hep C celebrities. She retired from the Judds, the duo with daughter Wynonna, in 1991. But she has since undergone treatment and become more active.

• Dusty Hill: The band ZZ Top stopped touring in 2000 because the bassist had hepatitis C. The band began touring again in 2002.

• Evel Knievel: The motorcycle daredevil had a liver transplant more than two years ago and later said doctors could find no trace of the virus in his blood.

• Chuck Negron: He’s the former lead singer on such Three Dog Night classics as “Joy to the World.”

• Larry Hagman: The television actor required a liver transplant in 1995.

• Phil Lesh: One of the founding members of the Grateful Dead, the bass player received a liver transplant several years ago.

• “Superstar” Billy Graham: The former WWF wrestling champion got a liver transplant last year. He thought he contracted the virus by being bled on during wrestling matches years ago.

• David Crosby: The rock star with a fabled history of drug abuse is touring again after receiving a liver transplant in 1995.

• Freddy Fender: The singer of such ’70s hits as “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” suffers from several health problems, including hepatitis C.

• Jack Kevorkian: The retired pathologist, now serving a prison term for killing a man who had Lou Gehrig’s disease, has hepatitis C, his lawyer says.

• Laurie Bembenek: The former Playboy bunny, whose conviction in a Milwaukee murder and later escape are chronicled in the book Run, Bambi, Run, is free now but suffers from hepatitis C.

• Rolf Benirschke: The former star kicker for the San Diego Chargers got the virus from a transfusion two decades ago. He has used his sports status to raise awareness about the disease.

• Linda Lovelace: The star of the 1972 porn film “Deep Throat” contracted the virus from a transfusion and had a liver transplant in 1987. She died in 2002 at age 53 after a car crash.

• Willie Dixon: The legendary bluesman was diagnosed with hepatitis C shortly before his death in 1992. He contracted the virus from transfusions in 1987.

• Alejandro Escovedo–Musician specializing in roots rock/alternative country, diagnosed in April 2003.

• Mickey Mantle: The baseball great is thought to have contracted hepatitis C during a transfusion for a knee operation. He died of liver cancer in 1995.

• Stormie Jones: The 13-year-old died in 1990 six years after becoming the first person in the world to receive heart and liver transplants in a single operation. Hepatitis C damaged that liver, though, and before she died she received a second liver and treatment for the virus.

• Ken Kesey: The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, who died of liver cancer in 2001, suffered from hepatitis C.

• James Earl Ray: The confessed assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. died in 1998 of liver disease after being infected with hepatitis C, probably in a 1981 blood transfusion he received after a prison stabbing.

• Allen Ginsberg: The poet laureate of the Beat Generation died in 1997 after battling hepatitis C for many years. He had terminal liver cancer.

• Lance Loud: The free-spirited son on public television’s “An American Family” in 1971, he died in 2001 of liver failure caused by hepatitis C and HIV.

• Frank Reynolds: Experts speculated at the time that the newsman’s death in 1983 was hastened by the virus later known as hepatitis C, which he may have contracted through a transfusion.

• Benito Mussolini: Did Il Duce, the World War II Italian dictator, have the disease? A new biography speculates that his chronic health problems — stomach pain, fatigue and depression — stemmed from an ulcer and a mild case of hepatitis C.

• Chet Helms Music producer who helped create the vibrant San Francisco rock music scene in the 1960s. He was undergoing interferon treatment for hepatitis C when he suffered a stroke

• Phil Lesh Founding member and bass guitarist of the rock band Grateful Dead. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1992 and received a liver transplant in 1998.

• David Marks Early member of The Beach Boys, who believes that he contracted the disease through drug use. He campaigns to raise awareness, supporting the UK National Health Service’s “FaCe It” campaign.

• Tawn Mastrey Disc jockey who was the voice of 1980s heavy-metal scene in Los Angeles. She contracted hepatitis C when she was a child.

• Kenny Neal New Orleans blues and swamp blues guitar player. He took a year off from performing while receiving treatment and returned to the Monterey Blues Festival in 2007.

• Chuck Negron Vocalist and founding member of Three Dog Night. He contracted hepatitis C due to “the long-lasting effects of drug use and alcoholism”.

• Gary S. Paxton Bakersfield country and gospel music artist. He contracted hepatitis C through several blood transfusions and almost died from the disease in 1990.

• Curtis Salgado Blues, R&B, and soul singer-songwriter-musician. Developed cirrhosis and liver cancer because of hepatitis C. Six benefit concerts were held in 2006 to raise money for his medical bills

• Tony Scalzo Rock musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the band Fastball.

• Uncle John Turner Blues musician and one of the founders of the blues-rock style of drumming

• Randy Turner Lead singer for the seminal hardcore punk band Big Boys.

• Christopher Lawford Nephew of John F. Kennedy, best known for his role as Charlie Brent on the soap opera All My Children in the early 1990s. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2001

• Natasha Lyonne Best known for her roles in the first two American Pie films

•Anita Pallenberg –Italian-born model, actress and fashion designer. Also known as the great influence on the development and presentation of the Rolling Stones from the late 1960s and through the 1970s

• Ken Watanabe Japanese actor best known for his role in The Last Samurai. He contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion when he was receiving treatment for acute myeloid leukemia

• Stanley Fafara Child actor who played “Whitey” on Leave it to Beaver. He contracted hepatitis C from intravenous drug use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_hepatitis_C

My mom would be appalled, but Books4free.com has the #1 Book on Amazon for Hep C

Posted: December 17, 2010 in Uncategorized
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Seriously, if there was any room in that coffin I’m sure she’d be turning in it. We were very much strategically brought up in the southern manor of giving off the appearance of normalcy, even if child abuse, domestic violence, and alcoholism was the prevailing wind inside the house, you’d better had a good cover story when you left the home front. Today, I am an open book, and proud of it. But boy would mama be upset that I’d made it to the top of the list of all Hep C book listed on Amazon. What a dreadful shame. I can literally hear her southern drawl “But JB why would you want people to know that about you.” Haha, because mom, I’m cured of it, and hopefully somebody somewhere will find solace and comfort in that fact. She would have had a hard time arguing that, as she was a good and decent christian woman, just a little preoccupied with social status and the appearance of the status quo. Ultimately the conversation would have ended with “Well, at least you had the good sense to use a pen name.”  haha….

That wasn’t my good sense, I would have much rather written it under my actual name, but through years of trial and error in following my own counsel I decided to allow my sponsor and attorney have their way with that one. The 11th tradition states of course that we must be anonymous in press, radio and films, and therefore I am, regardless of how many Glenn Blecks and the like out there aren’t. It’s difficult though, promoting a book under a pen name.

That being said, we are still well under the 100 books sold goal. Hovering around 50. I had hoped the funny ass cartoons about AA relationships would make people curious about the book but that too hasn’t generated too many book sales. Oh well, I am pretty happy with the new ranking under Hepatitis.

Thanks again for all the grassroots support people, making the number one slot on the Hepatitis C list on Amazon is a big deal even if it’s only taken 50 books to get there! Hope we stay at the top of the list for a while!

Thanks again and I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas!

-Jared Bryan Smith

Hippopotamus Sea – Hepatitis C, Recovery Memoir – Books4free.com Launch

Posted: May 20, 2010 in Uncategorized
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Wow, I remember when I began the project I believed I would finish the rough draft in approximately two weeks, and that was the Christmas break of 2008. One year and a half later, I am finishing up the final edit of my memoirs, having changed all the names, tweaking the ending, and adding the Amends to my mother, who passed from Cancer in 2004, and 3.5 years later, remains the one amends I’ve yet to make, and probably the toughest one of them all, as it ‘s a living amends one that I can not approach face to face. I’m sure I’ll uncover additional amends as I peel back the layers of the onion, but this one will finish the book nicely I believe.

Rand Hopkins told me a week before he died, that I should write the book, and that it would really help me more than anything else. He aslo said to live your dreams because you never know when you may get hit by bus. One week later, and a month after my mom died, Rand Hopkins died, and I stayed behind to continue my struggle with addiction. Man was he right. Finishing this book really helped me put it into perspective.

Using Thoreau’s quote, to summarize , Write as if you’re writing to relatives in a distant land, I was able to really detach myself from public opinion of the book. It’s for me and mine, and it’s  out there to share, if someone would like to read it, and it’s not aimed at pleasing or marketing to the masses, but really I think will be most helpful to those suffering from Hepatitis C, addiction, and of course the awful, but invaluable, Interferon treatment.

That being said, I’d love to sell a million copies, what writer wouldn’t.

Changing the names to protect the innocent bystanders, or others with the disease of alcoholism and or hepatitis C was my least favorite part of this project. Hiding under aliases felt so false, but the attorney and editor both strongly suggested it, and I’m not as headstrong as I once was. I would have much rather, published with all the real, original names though. I believe the story is still good, and solid and true, I just feel like some of the real names had a more poetic feel to them, and the false alias, felt a little fake, but I guess to strangers, who would know the difference. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

The process has been long and ardous to get it published as well. The publisher books4free just emailed me to tell me he just recieved the ISBN, and Bar Codes. The cover design editor has finally finished a rough draft that I’m happy with, but she still has some small customizations, and of course, I have to do a couple of small things. Finish final editing of about 90 pages, as well as set up lightning source account, amazon account, and link them all up to the bank accounts. 19.99 looks like it will be the book price for the hard copy, as I’m not trying to rape and pillage anyone, would rather be cheap and sell a bunch, than lose a single sale, and not reach someone. Also, of course, staying true to the name, the book will be available online for free. Hopefully though, this will sell more hard copy and epub formated books. Oh yes, also need to set up smashwords account for epub and digital formats….

So things are moving along, but slowly. The next book will go more smoothly I’m sure, but you’re first baby is always going to entail a learning curve. We’re getting there though.

-JB Smith

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