It’s often said that addiction is a family disease, and it is, but it is one thing to hear that and another to actually comprehend what it means. Statistics and research studies can be starkly illuminating and profoundly disturbing at the same time. There’s only one way to really know how addiction tears the guts out of a family – and that’s to experience it. In The Lost Years, written by the mother-daughter team of Constance Curry and Kristina Wandzilak, we don’t have to have been there to get an up-close and personal portrait of the anguish addiction causes the family.

In an interesting format, the story of daughter Kristina’s initiation and descent into addiction is told alternately by daughter and mother. The reader is introduced to each, beginning with Kristina, and the same events and situations are told through the prism of daughter and then mother.

This allows us to become familiar with the strengths and talents, shortcomings and weaknesses of each, as well as an emerging picture of their personalities. The story of Kristina’s fall from promising swimmer with her entire life ahead of her to emaciated, scarred, emotionally crushed drug addict is enough to bring tears to anyone’s eyes. It’s easy to feel torn by the same anguish Constance felt, helpless to stop her daughter’s headlong rush into substance abuse, and also to feel empathy – and heartbreak – at Kristina’s anger, sense of loss and abandonment.

After all, the young girl went through one heck of a lot before she was 18 years old: in and out of rehab like a revolving door, beaten and raped, using her body to get drugs, living on the street – and still she would not give up alcohol, meth, crack, cocaine. She was a full-on addict, and still deep in denial.

Mom tried to steer Kristina toward treatment numerous times. Even after Kristina ran away twice from a rehab facility near her northern California home and escaped an Idaho treatment center after staying only four days, Mom continued to urge treatment – and refused to allow her daughter to come home until she agreed.

It was an ongoing battle. Kristina was bound and determined not to give in. After all, at home, her father drank and belittled her mother, her two younger sisters didn’t have a clue and her brother was just off in his own world. Kristina was the one who was misunderstood, and she used her wits to start carving her own little world early on by sneaking out her bedroom window and drinking booze she filched from the liquor cabinet. Her mom would never figure it out, since dad drank so much and she was always replacing the supply.

And this had gone on for years.

Then there was the way her dad looked at her and talked when he was ripped. He never physically touched her or hurt her but kept saying how beautiful she was and commenting on her breasts. It was disgusting and Kristina hated when he padded into her room clad only in his Boxer shorts. She couldn’t wait for him to leave.

As for mom, she knew that her husband was drinking too much. Yet she tried to do the best she could for her four children. She was the dutiful wife and mother, making the house shine with her unceasing efforts to keep up appearances. That the family was wealthy made the secret addiction within a little easier to hide.

But no one went unscathed. It was just that Kristina was the one who acted out in the worst possible ways. Kristina turned into a raging meth freak that nearly died on the street, starved, alone and lost.

Finally, she agreed to go to rehab – and stay there. But after 28 days, she wanted to come home. The counselors said she still had a tremendous amount of anger and could benefit from another 28 days. Despite her initial rage and disappointment that her mom wouldn’t let her come home, Kristina agreed to stay. She broke down, cried bitterly, and released a dam of emotion she’d held back her entire life. She was just 18 when the realization struck home that she’d allowed this to happen to herself.

This was the turning point, the time when Kristina began to work hard to achieve and maintain her sobriety.

Mom, meanwhile, had been going to Al-Anon meetings and joined a group of mothers of drug addicts (they called themselves MODAS). She learned about the disease of addiction, enabling, and that she could not save her daughter. She could only change things about herself. Eventually she made the decision to leave her husband, and wound up taking her two younger daughters to live with her in a condo nearby. Her son, who spent mostly of his time away at college, decided to stay with his dad. Mom got stronger, worked her own recovery, and began to feel a great weight lifted from her soul. She was also happy for the first time in years.

Oh, there’s much more to the mother-daughter story. Of course, there would have to be, since life isn’t about simple endings all wrapped up nicely. There are good days and bad days, just as there are in the lives of every recovering addict and his or her family. But what the reader comes away with is an in-depth look at just what addiction can do to individual members of a family. It isn’t a pretty picture, but it lets us know in an engaging and absorbing fashion that addiction is a complex disease. It often results in families breaking up, personal hardship, incarceration, rape, starvation, life-threatening medical conditions or situations, and an uncertain outcome.

In the case of this mother and daughter, however, the closing scene is one of redemption and hope. Kristina finds love, gets married, and has a son and a daughter. For her part, mom has this to say at the end: “What I have learned over all these years is that it is not the adversity itself, but how I handled it that has come to define my life. I have tried to face our issues, understand and accept my part, forgive myself, and help my children move on. Our recovery has been a process, and we have all grown, changed, and healed.” (p.268)

As for Kristina, see how far she’s traveled in this quote: “When I first got sober I thought that life was over and that I was going to be restricted to the rooms of A.A. forever. I was convinced that sobriety was a prison and I was to serve a life sentence. I was wrong about that and I was wrong about A.A. Recovery has been absolutely and completely expansive, every day bigger, better, and brighter. I have been granted a life beyond my wildest expectations.”

Come take the journey yourself. Read this book to get an unforgettable look at The Lost Years.