Former Editor-in-chief of Details magazine, Dan Peres, is opening up about his severe opioid addiction in the ’90s in his upcoming memoir, ‘As Needed For Pain.’
From 1999 to 2017, more than 700,000 people died from a drug overdose, and the number continues to increase, according to the CDC. In just 2017, more than 68% of drug overdose-related deaths included an opioid. Dan Peres, the former Editor-in-Chief of Details magazine, recalls his struggle with addiction in his upcoming memoir titled As Needed For Pain, due out on February 11, 2020. HollywoodLife.com has the first look at the book cover, that features a figure of a man in a suit and tie without a face. “I always felt like I was hiding in plain sight. Like so many other high-functioning addicts, I was both visible and invisible at the same time. The cover of my memoir is a reflection of that,” Dan explained EXCLUSIVELY to HL.
He continued, “My job as the long-time Editor-in-Chief of Details required me to show up for — and even host — any number of high-profile events. When I was taking 60 pills a day, I was present for these functions, but I was never truly there. I did my best to avoid being photographed at these parties.” The Baltimore-born media maven shared an excerpt with HL from As Needed For Pain that further highlighted his feelings of isolation and embarrassment while interacting with some of Hollywood’s elite. “Photos of me with celebrities hardly mattered, and I resisted taking them as often and as aggressively as I could. I hated the way I looked in pictures, especially when I was standing awkwardly next to a chiseled Hollywood actor with golden skin, an artfully tousled bed head, and a blinding Chiclet smile,” Dan writes. “I was pasty and doughy and brimming with self doubt. So these photo ops — me side by side with superhero from the superhero movie — made me feel like the poor schmuck in plastic surgeon’s before photo.”
Dan, who has been sober since 2007, went down a decade-long dark spiral of opioid addiction following a routine back surgery. “Medication. I never really considered it medication,” he writes. “Maybe when it was first prescribed to me around the time of my surgery, but it hadn’t been medicine in years. They were simply my pills. My fuel. I could count the hours of the day by how many pills I had left in my pocket, like beads on an abacus. They were so many things to me, those pills—fuel, an escape, and eventually a necessity—but medication was not one of them.”
Courtesy of HarperCollins
As of January 2019, more than 130 people in the US die each day after overdosing on opioids. Dan’s As Needed For Pain will highlight the humanity behind the addiction, as he shares his honest and compelling experience. As Needed For Pain is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.
Sourse: hollywoodlife.com
