Patchwork Junkie
A True Story About Drugs, Prison and Surviving Redemption
In the mid-1990s, Kyle Houston developed a disturbingly poetic love affair with both needles and the alchemy of creating drugs. Far removed from his small-town values, the drug underground of Kansas City was a world that turned him into first a user and then a notorious meth cook.
He prayed for an overdose but instead, he got arrested. Confined to a one-man cell for 23 hours a day, he faced the reality of a 30-year sentence. When his sentence was reduced to nine years, he decided to serve his time and finally go home. Or so he thought.
With all the heartache and beauty of a tortured soul, Patchwork Junkie is a compelling, up-close portrait of the interior life of a young man yearning to put faith in something real. This memoir follows Kyle’s path from a powerful addiction to the violent prison world. It explores the fear of hope and the desperate pain of a mother watching her beloved child fall apart. Straddling a unique line between tragedy and humor, Kyle strikes at the core of what unites us all. Insightful and transforming, this harrowing true story is for anyone who has lost a loved one to addiction or incarceration, anyone who has lived through abuse or searched for meaning and simply aches to know they are not alone.
Readers Want to Know
Patchwork Junkie is the single most important piece of work I’ve ever done. Not only does this symbolize the release of an incredible amount of shame that I’ve held in for over twenty-five years, but it’s also a story that belongs to people who currently suffer with their own demons. When I set out to reveal my life’s story, I made a soul-searching decision that if I was going to tell it, I wasn’t going to spare any details. As frightening as it was, it is the honesty inside each page that allows me to take back my life. Even if it costs me the material opportunities I’ve managed to build along the way. This book is a result of a human being finding the courage to live the way he was meant to live. Finally.
Patchwork Junkie is not just a memoir about prison or drug life—although those certainly serve as the story’s backdrop. It is an exploration of that curious gray area between our destinies and cause and effect, where the reader gains access to themselves inside unthinkable moments they have never experienced. Originally, I thought this story would resonate with anyone who has ever lost a loved one to addiction, ever had to compromise themselves for survival or has overcome an abusive childhood, and it does. But the more people read it the more it becomes clear what it really represents— the strength of the human spirit. Intertwined in a tapestry of philosophy, humor and poetry, this book really is about understanding each of us. I couldn’t be prouder of it.
This was a very difficult decision for me to make. Not very many people go through the agonizing decision of putting something out into the world with Junkie being associated with their name. The truth is, I stand to lose a lot by doing this. But in the end, the decision became somewhat of a challenge. If I was truly committed to helping the hopeless and the weak, if this book was going to reveal answers to mother’s with lost children or children with absent parents, then I needed to take a leap where there would be no turning back. And Patchwork simply represents the incongruent episodes of our lives and how it all pieces together. If I was to lay out the episodes of my life, in a pile of polaroid pictures, you’d find a class clown, a high school athlete, a small town boy, a young man with a bright future, a good friend, a drug addict, an absent father, a convict facing life sentences in prison, a highly successful sale executive and a extremely loving father with his children. There are so many pieces that simply just don’t fit, don’t belong. But put then together and they make up me. I was a Patchwork Junkie
Patchwork Junkie is the single most important piece of work I’ve ever done. Not only does this symbolize the release of an incredible amount of shame that I’ve held in for over twenty-five years, but it’s also a story that belongs to people who currently suffer with their own demons. When I set out to reveal my life’s story, I made a soul-searching decision that if I was going to tell it, I wasn’t going to spare any details. As frightening as it was, it is the honesty inside each page that allows me to take back my life. Even if it costs me the material opportunities I’ve managed to build along the way. This book is a result of a human being finding the courage to live the way he was meant to live. Finally.
Patchwork Junkie is not just a memoir about prison or drug life—although those certainly serve as the story’s backdrop. It is an exploration of that curious gray area between our destinies and cause and effect, where the reader gains access to themselves inside unthinkable moments they have never experienced. Originally, I thought this story would resonate with anyone who has ever lost a loved one to addiction, ever had to compromise themselves for survival or has overcome an abusive childhood, and it does. But the more people read it the more it becomes clear what it really represents— the strength of the human spirit. Intertwined in a tapestry of philosophy, humor and poetry, this book really is about understanding each of us. I couldn’t be prouder of it.
This was a very difficult decision for me to make. Not very many people go through the agonizing decision of putting something out into the world with Junkie being associated with their name. The truth is, I stand to lose a lot by doing this. But in the end, the decision became somewhat of a challenge. If I was truly committed to helping the hopeless and the weak, if this book was going to reveal answers to mother’s with lost children or children with absent parents, then I needed to take a leap where there would be no turning back. And Patchwork simply represents the incongruent episodes of our lives and how it all pieces together. If I was to lay out the episodes of my life, in a pile of polaroid pictures, you’d find a class clown, a high school athlete, a small town boy, a young man with a bright future, a good friend, a drug addict, an absent father, a convict facing life sentences in prison, a highly successful sale executive and a extremely loving father with his children. There are so many pieces that simply just don’t fit, don’t belong. But put then together and they make up me. I was a Patchwork Junkie
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