Then There Was No Mountain: A Parallel Odyssey of a Mother and Daughter Through Addiction

By Ellen Waterston and Ellen Waterson

Book Overview

Then There Was No Mountain is the story of a single mother's efforts to steer her adolescents clear of substance use. Ironically, trying to manage the turmoil of those years, she comes to the realization that, out of her own inability to effectively deal with the circumstances, she resorts to behaviors associated with substance use disorder--magical thinking, denial, delayed reaction time--only making matters worse for those she most wants to help. Of this cautionary tale for parents, Publisher's Weekly writes, "Waterston bravely revisits a painful period of her life... H]er book should help others who are blindly navigating their way back to health and normalcy." According to the Oregonian, " T]he illuminating force of this book is Waterston's pacing, her metaphors, and her choreography with the language." TheSan Jose Mercury News states, "Full of honesty, heartbreak and revelation."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1589792475
• ISBN13: 9781589792470
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

a gripping, moving, and ultimately very hopeful story

Ellen Waterston gifts us with a gripping, deeply personal, and ultimately very hopeful story that reads like a good novel. You need not have endured the heartache of serious drug addiction and denial to appreciate this compelling story, although I work professionally with many addicted teens and their families and found the story true as well. It begins with Ellen's youngest daughter Sophie's submersion into drugs, dysphoria and dysfunction. As Sophie sinks deeper and deeper into her alienated world, Ellen (now a single mother after divorcing Sophie's drug abusing father) becomes more desperate and finally sends Sophie off to a residential drug rehabilitation program in rural Montana. There both of them find a guiding light in the woman founder and force behind the Northern Lights adolescent girls rehabilitation program. From here the story is about Ellen and how she struggles to see and then heal her own addictions to control, guilt, and victimization. When Sophie comes home after nearly a year in treatment and gets drunk with her older brother, Ellen implodes. "I am sick of doing it all, I wailed to myself: bread winner, boundary setter, unconditionally loving parent. I have been robbed by drugs, I whined, of my husband and my relationship with my children." Friends urge her beyond feelings of betrayal to a place where she can see that Sophie is now responsible for her own life. Beginning to genuinely let go, she rediscovers the real life we are all meant to lead-"in trust, in faith, in love, even when you can't see." Like real life, the story has a hopeful, but not final ending. The struggle that Ellen captures so eloquently is life-size and on-going. I savored this odyssey well after finishing the book. Hopefully, when Sophie grows into her own muse, she will treat us to her own story.