DIYA Sethi spent most of her childhood within “a cocoon” created by the love and care of her parents and her elder brother, the same cocoon that eventually sheltered her and became her “life support system” during her darkest days. Yet, as a child she constantly felt the necessity to attract her elders’ attention by being high-pitched, which, as she writes, was the weapon that she used to “fight for” her right to be heard and acknowledged by her parents, presumably because she was the youngest child and the only girl.

The family also had to move frequently to different cities and countries as her father was posted to diplomatic positions, representing India across the world. Her need for attention was exacerbated by her experiences with racism and xenophobia in Kuala Lumpur and South Africa, where her peers’ acts of not only excluding the young Sethi from their groups but also insulting her for her foreignness and skin colour left her heartbroken. Thus, the writer provides a detailed background by describing her early life, which helps the reader to understand how and why she ended up ‘sick’.

Reading The Addict is quite an eye-opening experience, and will make those going through similar experiences realise they are not alone. Some aspects of her struggles resonate deeply with the reader, such as deluding ourselves that what we feel is anything but pain, that our lives are in perfect control, and the experience of confessing to someone that we are sick and need help.

Having learnt from her personal experiences with anorexia-bulimia and related medical and psychiatric complications, Sethi points out that the available literature on eating disorders is actually full of gaps, which makes them difficult to diagnose and treat. Sethi explains the book’s title, The Addict, by describing how an eating disorder gives the sufferer “a powerful high”, which is why it is categorised as an addiction. It is a chilling reminder of our own lack of knowledge of eating disorders, of how the treatment of psychiatric illnesses continues to be of a lower standard than the treatment of medical illnesses; and how the stigma associated with them remains mostly unchanged. The only thing that has changed so far is that we now have an increasing number of people who are attempting to spread awareness and understanding of mental health and related illnesses like Sethi herself has done through this book.

The Addict is essentially the spiritual journey of its author, leading to her discovering not only her sense of self but also beating her addiction and leading to her recovery. Sethi invites the reader in, irrespective of their belief system, and forms a deep connection on a spiritual level. This opens up various ways of interpreting and understanding Sethi’s tale, and even applying the lessons one has learnt from it according to one’s own beliefs.

This implies that anyone can discover their sense of self in whichever way they feel comfortable, just like Sethi herself did. The only requirement that they must fulfil is that they must surrender themselves to whichever Divine force they believe in, probably the biggest struggle that one can experience on this journey. It is only when one surrenders that one is able to cleanse one’s emotions of their negativity, tap into one’s intrinsic store of resilience and finally taking a step forward on the road to one’s recovery. And this path cannot be mapped out by others.

Sethi addresses this issue in detail, raising the following question: “Should the art of living not be derived from the act of living? Is it not a form that shapes itself only in the experience of living?” Most self-help literature focuses on providing us with just methods to help us to become a better person or resolve our problems. But truly beneficial self-help literature is the kind that points out the path we must take to discover our sense of self on our own, such as The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, whose philosophy of mindfulness helped Sethi to discover her passion for cooking.

Sethi also shares her own spiritual beliefs throughout the book, mainly by using epigraphs at the start of each chapter: either a quote by a renowned philosopher or poet, or something that she herself wrote to express her beliefs. Each of these quotes successfully sets the tone and mood for the chapter that follows, and by extension for the entire narrative. For example, she begins chapter one by quoting her own words: “But what did I do wrong?” Similarly, the chapter that chronicles her days as a consumer of hard drugs begins with the following epigraph: “La vie en noir — Life in black”, while the one that follows the former begins with a quote from an unknown person, “Bring me to the surface, give me air to breathe, let me see the sorrow upon my broken dreams”. As she begins her recovery, the epigraphs begin assuming a more hopeful outlook, despite her many relapses: such as “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change/The courage to change the things I can/And the wisdom to know the difference”.

Sethi’s voice stands out because of her unique diction and syntax, which produce a hard-hitting effect on the reader — every word, every sentence conveying a certain meaning and purpose. She uses words throughout her narrative that would normally be avoided in favour of other simpler words. As a result of her diction, she has peppered her narrative with vivid images, which make her story an immensely powerful and compelling one.

A brutish power emanates from her narrative, especially her account of her struggles with alcoholism and drug use, along with anorexia-bulimia. It was at this point that her recovery truly began, in spite of several subsequent relapses. In fact, Sethi herself considers her drug use as a monumental period in her life because it gave her the vital opportunity to study addiction and its various forms and manifestations, particularly how it rips apart an individual’s personality and life.

It is a rare occurrence indeed that another person’s journey of self-discovery takes one on a whirlwind journey of their own, or at least it shows them the path. Sethi’s memoir is, for this reason, an important book that has much to offer readers with vastly different tastes in literature, as one may easily find something in the story to connect with.

The Addict: A Life Recovered

(MEMOIR)

By Diya Sethi

HarperCollins, India

ISBN 978-9351368311

216pp.