The Way We Stay: A Memoir of Recovery

by Cere Demuth

Cere’s only son’s opiate addiction leaves her coping with pain, fear, and humiliation for twelve long years. A small town psychotherapist, living in the idyllic islands of the Pacific Northwest, she struggles to balance the needs of her family beneath the shadow of addiction. She revisits her tumultuous childhood beginning in the Bay Area with her birth during the Summer Of Love to leftist radical hippies. Cere retraces her parents’ intense, but brief, political involvement in the leftist militant group The Weather Underground. Eventually, her family moves to Whidbey Island where her parents raise her and her brother in a small, rural, alternative community. . In the midst of a painful, high-risk, adolescence she invites the reader into her internal world as a teen-age mother in 1985, an adoptive mom in 2000, and a psychotherapist of twenty-five years desperately trying to heal her family and herself from the suffering caused by addiction. Written in a sparse, poetic language, The Way We Stay is a story of heartbreaking love, vulnerability, faith and healing. . "Cere Demuth has written a brave and beautiful book that I believe will help many other people along their path of understanding and forgiveness when dealing with a loved one grappling with addiction." —Claire Bidwell Smith, author of The Rules of Inheritance . “Engrossing...heartfelt. A story of addiction told with transparency and compassion.” — Jillian Lauren, NY Times bestselling memoirist of Some Girls, and Everything You Ever Wanted. . “Cere Demuth’s book THE WAY WE STAY is much more than “A Memoir Of Recovery”. It is a thrilling intimate book of family survival that is impossible to put down. Born into the era of Peace and Love, Cere’s story, as a daughter; wife; mother and grandmother takes us into the chaos of that era, it’s aftermath and the power of drug addiction to ruin everything it touches. Told in a brilliant mixture of prose and poetry. A gripping and harrowing story that will have you falling in love with the characters and praying for them all to find peace and happiness.” —Country Joe McDonald, Singer/Songwriter, Author, Activist . “THE WAY WE A Memoir of Recovery by Cere Demuth shines a spotlight on how interwoven pain and love can be. Her tale, a mother with a heroin-addicted son, THE WAY WE STAY is told with a stark, poignant fragility. A story of one woman’s heartbreak. A story meant for the world. A story you won’t want to put down.” —Susan Wingate, Amazon bestseller,
award-winning author, www.susanwingate.com

276 pages, Paperback

Published May 27, 2018

Reviews

[Alicia Cook]

When going into reading a memoir about addiction, you must take yourself out of it. Remind yourself this is not your story. It's hard to take yourself out of a story you don't belong in when the trajectory of addiction and its effect on the family is a similar tale told over and over again. It can very well sound nearly identical to your story. Because it is affecting millions of people at this point. Not sure if that makes sense.

Demuth's story was not identical to my story. So, When I first started reading this and failed to take myself out of the narrative, that was unfair to the author. Because I compared it to my own nightmare. There were parts I didn't agree with, parts I felt to my depths of my soul, parts that made me laugh and cry, parts I wanted to chime in, etc. The moment I took myself out of the book, I was able to fully embrace Demuth's journey. I admire her openness; it could save a life.

It is a very strong addiction/recovery memoir. It is honest. The storytelling and structure were very unique. I recommend.

[Phyllis]

Reading Cere's struggle with her son's addiction was heart wrenching and insightful. I could relate to much of it and I read in in one day. I thought of the saying that we never know what struggles and pain someone else I carrying and to always be kind.

[Briana Alzola]

Some parts of this memoir bothered me a little, but I think the story is a powerful one that deserves to be told.

[Courtney Chandler Bing]

This book is so much different than the other addiction memoirs (especially those written by parents of addicts) I’ve read. The structure is almost that of a diary with sections reading almost as a meditation of her breathing that helped create natural flow between sections.

I commend Cere in her ability to be so honest and I cannot imagine the power it took to not only share the emotions and thoughts of this time in her life, but just to make it through them. Another way this memoir is so unique is that she does not go into too much detail about all the different recovery programs and relapses her son experiences; Cere, more than most parents I’ve read about, or talked to at work, was able to separate herself from Nate’s life while he was still in active addiction. While I originally had mixed feelings about this approach, I realize I’m not a parent going through these obstacles so I have no room to judge & bottom line, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book!

ps. congrats to Nate for getting sober in his own way and time 💜