Contemporary Authors

• Saving Bobby: Heroes and Heroin in One Small Community ( memoir) SheWrites Press (Tempe, AZ), 2018

• Renee Hodges - http://www.reneehodgesauthor.com/about-the-author/

  Renée Hodges, Author
  Residence: Durham, NC

  Although her Louisiana roots run deep, Renée Hodges and her husband have called North Carolina home for the past thirty years.

  Hodges has worked as a campaign manager for a candidate for the Texas State House of Representatives (she won); front desk person at a ski resort; and volunteer recruiter and registration head during a presidential campaign in New York City.

  She also co-wrote and self-published the Best Kept Secrets series of guides in the 1980s.

  Settling into motherhood and raising a family has been her most satisfying work, however, and today she is a wife, mother of three, writer, investor, community volunteer, and avid tennis player.

• Foreword Reviews - https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/interview-with-renee-hodges-author-of-saving-bobby-heroes-and-heroin-in-one-small-community/

  Quoted in Sidelights: “The reasons I decided to help Bobby are a mix of personality and circumstances,I am an impulsive thinker and an idealist, which is sometimes a blessing and can also get me in trouble!” “It was monumental when my brother reached out to me,” “probably more like an unexplained aligning of the stars.” “On the same day that Bobby began traveling to Durham to stay with us my best friend’s son, a young man I had watched grow up, accidentally overdosed on heroin and died. In my deep grief, and because of the extremely uncanny coincidence of his death as Bobby arrived in Durham, I became determined that there must be a higher purpose for Bobby.”
  “a beautifully written memoir from a veritable Joan of Addiction.”

  INTERVIEW WITH RENEE HODGES, AUTHOR OF SAVING BOBBY: HEROES AND HEROIN IN ONE SMALL COMMUNITY
  Image of Author Renée Hodges and cover of Saving Bobby

  Like banking and agriculture, the medical industry is big business in the United States, with many tens of billions of dollars (both public and private) going into research, prevention, treatment, lobbying, and the like. But when it comes to respect, certain diseases—cancer, heart, and lung—get treated like royalty while others—drug addiction—not so much.

  Here’s the heartbreaking facts: More than two million Americans currently struggle with an opioid disorder, 42,249 died from opioid overdose in 2016, the problem is worsening by the day.

  Unlike cancer and heart disease, where great advances have been made over recent decades, drug addiction has proven especially difficult to treat because so little is understood about the human brain. Seemingly, every addict is unique in their addiction to their drug of choice.

  Cover of Saving BobbyAnd then there’s the stigmatization of drug abuse. For an inspiring lesson in how to win the shame game and also deal a blow to opioid addiction, this week’s Foreword Face Off interview features Renée Hodges, author of Saving Bobby: Heroes and Heroin in One Small Community (She Writes Press). Hodges says it’s a misunderstanding that addicts use drugs to feel high, instead “they use them to feel normal. Because it [addiction] is a brain disease, it changes behavior, causing addicts to do things most would never dream of doing if they were not addicted.”

  Not only a beautifully written memoir from a veritable Joan of Addiction, we found Saving Bobby to be a guidebook, offering specific, proven ideas for caregivers to help an opioid addict beat the odds.

  One of the interesting details of your story is the fact that you’re Bobby’s aunt and not a mother or grandmother, the two relations most commonly thrust into the role of helping an addict. But in the book, you write about the long history of addiction in your family and the fact that you suffer from the guilt of NOT having an addiction. Was it this guilt that caused you to take such an interest in your nephew? What else compelled you to play the role of caretaker?
  Sometimes, the best gift that a parent or grandparent can give to their recovering addict/alcoholic (I’ll use addict from here on out for ease) is to be able to turn their loved one over to someone else for care, to let them go and love from afar. Mothers, parents and grandparents can be too close to the situation, and a geographical change or a caregiver change might be just what the addict needs to see their situation more clearly, especially if there is a pattern of rehab, recover, release, and repeat. Bobby told me that it was the change in both location and caregivers that allowed him to see how his addictive behavior affected his family and friends.

  Of course, this lesson and most of the lessons I have learned from the sixteen months my nephew lived with my husband and me were learned in hindsight.

  The reasons I decided to help Bobby are a mix of personality and circumstances. I am an impulsive thinker and an idealist, which is sometimes a blessing and can also get me in trouble! I’ve often described myself as a “fixer” and you know the saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy mom!”

  As for circumstance, in March of 2013 my brother called to tell me that his son, my nephew Bobby, had left the half-way house and was contemplating taking his life. I was only vaguely aware of the many years that Bobby’s family had been dealing with his addiction to opioids and heroin because addiction was not something we discussed in our family. Bobby became addicted to opioids while in college, almost six years prior, after a physician prescribed Oxycontin for a back problem. This was at a time when there was little talk about how addictive opioids could be, and by the time Bobby graduated (several years late) he was a full-blown addict.

  Yes, there was a long history of addiction in my family. My family did not know to seek outside help, nor was it OK to talk about alcoholism, so we denied and ignored it, even to each other. Because my parents and my grandparents did not know to talk about the disease, my brother, sister, and I did not know we had a genetic predisposition to addiction. And, because we didn’t know to talk about it, Bobby did not know that genetically he had a much higher chance of addiction than others. It became a vicious cycle.

  It was monumental when my brother reached out to me. I offered to have Bobby come to Durham for a complete physical. Rationally, I thought, find and fix the chronic back ailment and maybe it would lessen Bobby’s want and need for pain relief. Naively I thought it would only take a few weeks to get the diagnosis, find an apartment, and let Bobby begin looking for a job.

  Was my offer to have Bobby come to Durham based on some long-hidden guilt? Maybe. I did have some survivors guilt since I had never struggled with addiction and I’d been judgmental and resentful of some of my family members. But it was probably more like an unexplained aligning of the stars.

  On the same day that Bobby began traveling to Durham to stay with us my best friend’s son, a young man I had watched grow up, accidentally overdosed on heroin and died. In my deep grief, and because of the extremely uncanny coincidence of his death as Bobby arrived in Durham, I became determined that there must be a higher purpose for Bobby. The precipitous nature of these events more than anything else is the primary reason I became Bobby’s caregiver.

  Early in the book, as Bobby moves into your house and you began to understand the depths of his problems, you write about your husband’s deep discomfort with the new arrangements. While he was tentatively supportive, emotionally you guys weren’t on the same page at all. Can you talk about the stress on your marriage and whether it had lasting effects?
  I like to say that my husband and I grew up and grew together. We started dating our freshman year in high school when I admired his “Earth” shoes, the ugliest pair of brown leather shoes with “negative heel technology,” where the heel was lower than the toe. We married at age 24 and were celebrating 30 years of marriage and 39 years together when Bobby came to stay. We were also newly empty nesting.

  Our personalities are like two teams on opposite ends of the field. For example, Will is not an impulsive decision maker. It takes days of research and many trips to the store or internet before Will will buy an item, usually the first one he looked at. On the other hand, I have always been of the opinion that if you let the first one pass you by, you may never get the chance again!

  We learned that the key to a winning marriage is for both of us to play on the forty-yard line, in the middle of the field, and to give up the ball when needed. Because we love each other we know that if we both played in our own end zone we would never play the game. So, although our personalities are very different, this is our attraction. Together we see the playing field from all angles.

  No matter what your personality may be, taking in a recently released addict when you had envisioned your newly empty nesting life relaxing on a beach, is stressful. I made the decision to see a psychologist weekly while Bobby was living with us. This decision may have been the best one I made and I’m sure it contributed to maintaining and strengthening my marriage. In therapy, I would lay bare my indecisions, my anxiety, and my questions on how to balance Will and help Bobby. Seeking professional advice to guide me through the stressful times just made sense to me. This decision helped me put Will first, unless of course it was an emergency, and to help Bobby in the best way I could.

  As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Bobby and Will began to connect, slowly and very deeply. Throughout the process Will kept me from being too idealistic, and I kept Will from giving up on Bobby too soon.

  Today my marriage is stronger than ever, and Will is my biggest supporter, other than Bobby and my three children. In the end, the very things that helped Bobby’s recovery are the reasons why my husband loves me. Like I said, those things sometimes get me in trouble, but in this case they were a blessing. And his support, even when the situation may not have been his first choice, speaks to his love and flexibility.

  Although he is a more private person, Will’s recognition that we might give others hope in the face of overwhelming doubt by sharing our story also motivates his support. This brings my analogy full circle: we are a dedicated team that came together and pursued the same goal. I call that a winning combination!

  Your emotional rawness and willingness to put it all out there throughout Saving Robby is disarming, but hugely important to the power of the book. And you write at a very high level. At what point did you decide to make your experience with Bobby a book? From a writing standpoint, was it clear from the beginning how you wanted to tell this story?
  Thank you for the compliment. I believe my personality is a bit like my writing. I am a very open person, and I love people and enjoy making deep and lasting connections.

  I did not set out to publish a memoir. I first had an inkling of an idea when Bobby was ready to move out after our sixteen-month journey. Before he moved on he mentioned that he would like me to write down his story because he wanted to always remember where he came, how far he has come, and so he never ends up back there again.

  I was enthusiastic and even though I have no experience with writing a manuscript, I was excited. I went through my computer and phone and collected every email and every text over that sixteen-month journey. Apparently, I never empty the trash!

  I also typed up many of my journal entries, months of writing to myself late at night in order to alleviate anxiety and help me fall asleep. I had chronicled every step of our journey together. Those emails, texts, and journal entries became the starting point for the memoir.

  I didn’t know how powerful Bobby’s and my story was until I asked my book club to read and help put the finishing touches on it. It was their emotional response that persuaded Bobby and me to turn the manuscript into a memoir and publish. Bobby is now a drug counselor and is speaking about his experiences openly. Publishing a book seemed to be the right step.

  It is raw and it is vulnerable. But, it is also a beautifully inspiring and hopeful story of recovery. I grappled with letting the public read this intimate story. In the end I knew that I could not ask Bobby to shed his shame and be honest about his disease without me being courageous enough to do the same. I knew that this story would be a teaching tool and give others hope so putting it all out there was more than worth it.

  The successful treatment of opioid addiction is elusive. Why might this be so, and are you aware of any therapies or treatments that have shown promising results?
  Every situation is unique. I have written a very personal story about one young man’s recovery and how the shame and stigma of his disease was lessened by community. I am not a doctor, counselor, or therapist so I don’t feel qualified to talk on promising therapies or treatments. This is not a “one size fits all” situation. However, it is a story of hope and I believe we must have hope to face addiction in all its complexity.

  Here is what else I believe: I believe that we must change the way insurance covers stays for addiction treatment. Twenty-eight days is barely enough time for an addict to detox, much less address other mental health issues or emotional issues contributing to substance abuse.

  Bobby’s story illustrates how ill-prepared many addicts are when they are beginning recovery. We want desperately to believe our loved one is fully recovered after a stay in rehab, but in thinking this way, we are missing a crucial and the most vulnerable period of an addict’s recovery. When a patient is discharged and leaves the safety and security of a treatment center or halfway house, we say go get a job, go get an apartment, or go be normal now.

  When Bobby came to live with us it was apparent that he was not yet ready to be out in the world. Not surprisingly, it would be a little bit longer than the two weeks we had planned—like sixteen months longer.

  For example, Bobby did not have money, a job, job skills, or training, and he had few prospects. He did not have a wife or kids waiting at home for him. He did not have anywhere to live. Bobby had huge gaps in his resume. He still had a chronic back problem.

  Bobby had also lost touch with the outside world. There are no newspapers or magazines in rehab and TV is heavily monitored because of the ads for alcohol, prescription drugs, and sexual innuendo. Therefore, Bobby did not know what was happening in the news, in politics, or in sports. Technology had left him behind.

  Bobby was also in a state of “learned helplessness.” This state is a byproduct of treatment where an addict has been told what to do, think, and feel, and subsequently is unable to function without guidance when released.

  Bobby carried so much shame that he self-isolated from the rest of the world. Yes, Bobby was substance-free and newly released from rehab and a halfway house, but he had a long way to go before he would have a successful long-term recovery.

  I believe we must make treatment available for all who are suffering, regardless of financial ability. And I believe we should consider step-down medical treatments. Good (evidence-based) treatment does work.

  I also believe that we need to change the way we talk about addiction. It is not a parenting problem or a character flaw, it is a disease and it is not shameful. Transforming our language and perceptions around addiction is easier said than done and the change will come slowly but it must happen. Lives depend on it.

  It’s heartbreaking to imagine that crucial moment when incidental, recreational drug use explodes into the day-to-day habit of full blown addiction. No doubt, the great majority of drug addicts are shocked and dismayed by their descent, and would give anything to return to a more normal, drug-and-alcohol-free life. And then there’s the shame, which you stress is terribly destructive to the addict and his family. Addiction is crazymaking. With all you’ve gone through, what does the word now mean to you?
  Let me start with what the word addiction is not. As I said, it is not a parenting failure. It is not a moral failing. It is not a choice and it is not shameful. It was hard for me to think of addiction in this way until I sought professional guidance for Bobby and for myself.

  Now I understand that addiction is a disease, much like heart disease, lung disease, and cancer. Addiction is chronic and over time it rewires the way the brain functions. Addicts don’t use drugs to feel high, they use them to feel normal. Because it is a brain disease, it changes behavior, causing addicts to do things most would never dream of doing if they were not addicted.

  There is great shame and stigma associated with addiction and its behavior. Several weeks after Bobby came to stay, he came to me in the kitchen and said, “Aunt Neé, Mrs. Wollman asked me to walk her dog.” “Great,” I replied, thinking he needed the money. “No, Aunt Neé, Mrs. Wollman asked me to walk her dog.” This time I turned around and looked at him. “Aunt Neé, she asked me to walk her dog. She trusts me.”

  No one had trusted Bobby with anything since he became addicted in college nearly seven years earlier. I tear up every time I tell this story. A small gesture such as walking a dog meant so much more to Bobby. And Bobby was the best damn dog walker ever.

  This was the first of many self-esteem boosters for Bobby. My small community began asking Bobby to do the odd errand, to help in their garden, to remove debris from a yard. They invited him to baseball games, to get ice cream, to go to church, and to go out to dinner with their families. They looked at Bobby without stigma. They saw someone who had a disease and needed a hand up, and they offered it. This reaching out helped Bobby choose to save himself.

  Our readership is heavy on librarians. Will you offer us a reading list of your favorite books on the opioid crisis and addiction?
  I’ve listed some of my favorites and the more well-known books on the current epidemic. What sets Saving Bobby: Heroes and Heroin in a Small Community apart from these and other books on addiction is that Saving Bobby is a hopeful book about recovery, chronicling the sixteen months after an addict has left the safety of a rehab facility and the difficulties someone in recovery has in assimilating back into society.

  Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic\
  By Sam Quinones\
  Bloomsbury Press. (2015)\
  Quinones looks at the over prescription of pain medication in the 1990s and the influx of black tar heroin from Mexico to the United States.

  Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy\
  By David Sheff\
  Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (2013)\
  Examines the available research on prevention and treatment to argue that “addiction isn’t a criminal problem, but a health problem.”

  In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts\
  By Gabor Maté\
  North Atlantic Books (2010)\
  Focuses on the social, cultural, and biological causes of addiction.

  Beautiful Boy\
  By David Sheff\
  Mariner Books (2009)\
  Sheff’s memoir of battling with his own son’s substance abuse.

  What’s next? To what great cause will you devote your extraordinary energy and willpower?
  I would like to help Bobby begin a speaking career. He is charismatic and intelligent, and his good looks don’t hurt him! And he has a story of hope and encouragement for both caregivers and those in recovery. Bobby has gone on to get his Master of Social Work, graduating near the top of his class, and is now counseling others with addiction. He is working to become a Licensed Therapist and is just shy a few hours.

  I think Bobby and I are a great team. We have plans to publish a self-help book in 2019 to help caregivers and loved ones who are beginning the recovery journey. Hope is the best gift we can share.

  Matt Sutherland
  May 25, 2018

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/renees-story-behind-saving-bobby-renee-hodges/

  Renee's Story Behind "Saving Bobby"
  Published on February 27, 2018
  Renee Hodges
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  Before I started my new business, I was a newly empty-nesting fifty-three-year-old. After raising three children and sending the last one off to college, I was looking forward to traveling with my husband, playing more tennis, and crossing off the many books on my "want to read" list. I was not looking for a new career but one never knows when one's life path will change. For me, my course was forever altered by the death by overdose of my best friend's son and by choosing to take in and care for my opioid-addicted nephew. These two events set me on a career path I would never have chosen for myself.

  My nephew Bobby became accidentally addicted in college to prescription opioids, prescribed for a chronic back problem. By graduation, he was a full-blown heroin addict. He overdosed and was sent to the first of many rehabilitation centers and half-way houses. A pattern had begun: rehab, release, relapse, repeat. In March of 2013, Bobby was released from yet another of a growing list of centers and was living in a halfway house in Florida. I offered a new start in our hometown and Bobby packed and moved to North Carolina.

  From the moment my recovering nephew entered my home, I found that writing down my thoughts released the anxiety that kept me awake at night. For sixteen months I chronicled the difficulties my nephew had in assimilating back into society after years of in and out of rehabilitation centers and half-way houses. The very first weekend I began to journal to myself before bedtime, the seed was planted for a new career.

  When Bobby finally left my home, sixteen months later, he asked me to write down his story to long-term recovery so that he would never forget. With the help of a memoir book coach, Allison Kirkland, I began a new career as a writer and author. The manuscript started taking shape as I pieced Bobby's recovery story together using emails, texts and journal entries, an epistolary of sorts, and added my personal recollections.

  I am not a licensed physician, social worker, or counselor, but, I am one of the millions of everyday people tragically affected by addiction. I began writing at the request of my nephew, but in the end, I realized I was writing for myself and all of us affected by the helplessness of addiction in our families and our communities. Little did I know the enormous power that Bobby's and my story would have on others struggling. Bobby's story was passed by email so many times that it became somewhat viral and the decision to publish was easily made.

  Writing, traditional publishing, and publicizing a book was a whole new learning curve. I bought "how to write" books by Stephen King's and Annie Lamont, and I devoured them. I signed up for several online classes on "how to get an agent," "write a query," and "submit a finished manuscript." My memoir book coach helped me pull the vignettes of sixteen months together in a readable fashion but I needed other outside help to be sure that my plot was cohesive, there were no holes in the storyline and that Saving Bobby made sense from start to finish. This professional is a developmental editor, and she was found by searching online through the myriad of sites with listings to help the struggling new author -- me. The developmental process took four months of back and forth emailing, correcting and submitting before we felt the plot was as tight as it could be.

  I continued learning about book agents and the Big Five Publishing Houses, I worked on query letters to these agents, which are emails with a pitch for the book and representation, and I soaked up information about publishing found on blogs, and on writers and publishing sites.

  I crowd-sourced the name of the book and sought advice and critique of the manuscript through my book clubs, and they gave me critical and much-needed feedback. I grew broad shoulders and thick skin.

  I signed up for Writer's Digest and Publisher's Weekly and began submitting queries to book agents. As I waited for responses that many were never to come, I continued to read online. It was the realization that even after signing with an agent, it would be two-plus years to find a publisher who would bring the book to press, I decided to change tracks completely. The landscape is changing for publishing, much like it has done for retailers and travel agents.

  Traditional publishing was being tested by the internet and Amazon, and the ease in which self-published books could be made and marketed. The Big Five, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster are stingy, unwilling or unable to take a chance on losing money with a gamble of a new author. Editorials/blogs were touting that only surefire authors like Hilary Clinton or John Grisham were getting contracts. Wide appeal books like "lose ten pounds in ten minutes" were popular too. As Saving Bobby is topical and timely, I felt I was neither a good candidate for a traditional publisher nor could I take the amount of time a traditional publishing route would take. The opioid epidemic is in the news now, and I did not know for how long.

  I found that hybrid publishing offered a much-needed alternative in a rapidly changing publishing landscape. She Writes Press, gave me a traditional house experience, complete with traditional distribution and an experienced editorial and production team while allowing me to retain full ownership of my project and earnings. I submitted my manuscript to She Writes Press who only takes 7% of all manuscripts and was excitedly accepted.

  Before committing, I looked into self-publishing, an easy and cheap process through Amazon and their book publishing department, Create Space (now defunct). I toyed with this much less expensive and quick option but after having a consultation one on one with a publishing expert, I learned that hybrid publishing would give me the credibility and expertise of a traditional publisher and I could have my manuscript molded into a top-notch book in one year's time. Foreign rights, royalties, and other legal entities were negotiated and a contract was signed.

  My new publisher, Brooke Warner, was amazing and I was assigned an editorial manager. She Writes Press works together with the author to produce the best product we can put out there. As standards are high, Saving Bobby was immediately sent to another copy editor to have all the tenses in the book changed to past tense instead of the present and past tenses I had used throughout.

  The name of the book was finalized to Saving Bobby: Heroes and Heroin in One Small Community after much discussion. The front cover was designed, while metadata and TIP sheets were being researched. There was nomenclature to learn, author photos to be shot, and copy-editing to be done: six times by four different editors by the time it was published. Copy editing is when someone corrects your grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and much more. The Chicago Manual of Style is used for published books and it was as foreign as if I were learning a new language.

  Blurbs and endorsements were solicited. Amazon Author Central was formed, as was a Goodreads Author Page and Facebook Business Page. There was copyright filing and obtaining my Library of Congress control number to be done by the publisher. Metadata management, and interior design and formatting. There were e-book file conversion and an upload to e-retailers. Back Cover copy and design was the last step before the Advance Reader Copy was sent to me for final approval.

  And, while I was working on the best product I could produce, simultaneously, my publicist and marketing firm of Caitlin Hamilton Publicist and Marketing, Inc, was coming up with a publicity plan. There were long and short lead targets, media and book signings, business cards and postcards created, and everything in between. The publicists sent over 130 Advance Reading Copies out to generate media and speaking engagements. I teamed up with a national organization, Shatterproof, to get our message out. We are still booking events and I will make the million-miles-frequent-flyer club yet!

  2018 has already been a great year for Saving Bobby. May 1st is the official publication date of the book although it can be pre-ordered on many sites including Indiebound, Barnes Nobles, Amazon.com or an independent bookstore near you. Pre-sales are strong sending Saving Bobby to number 247 on the Amazon list in the category of drug dependency as of 2-25-18.

  The official book launch is planned in my hometown and the indie bookstore, The Regulator, will sell books at the launch. An email list is formed and a save the date and an e-vite will be sent out.

  The book tour begins in May of 2018 with stops and speaking opportunities in many states. Book Clubs, high schools, and addiction agencies are all targets.

  Solicited and unsolicited early reviews had come out with highly positive feedback - and Saving Bobby has been entered into three Independent Awards contests.

  Other social media sites are being launched or updated to reflect news of the book: Linked In, Instagram and Twitter. I hired a social media manager to help me update my website and begin a social media campaign because my time was limited to the many publishing and publicity duties I had. Ann Gray Consulting used Facebook Ads and boosted posts, updated and linked my business website with my other social media pages and began posting on all my sites videos and news releases generating hundreds of new followers and likes.

  Writing and publishing a book is a labor of love. The best advice I can share is to believe in yourself, no matter what others are saying. Harry Potter was turned down a dozen times and now Hogwarts is as well-known as Harvard. If you don't believe, then why should someone else?

  Be good to yourself and by this I mean when to ask for help and to hire out. Publishing is full of deadlines. On more than one occasion I asked my book club or children to proof the manuscript. I hired out when I was overwhelmed, including developmental and copy editors or take-out food for dinner.

  Celebrate the process, no matter how arduous and financially profitable or unprofitable it is. The creation of and the marketing of a book is beautiful. But, like having a baby, after the birth one forgets all about the labor pains.

  Saving Bobby, Heroes and Heroin will be born on May 1, 2018. Bobby and I recognized that there is a need for a positive, encouraging and hopeful story of recovery. Bobby's story and mine will help others that are struggling with addiction and depression, in recovery, or the caregivers that take care of them. What I realized and what this story confirms is that recovery is just beginning when one is leaving the structure and safety of a rehabilitation center or half-way house. As a community, we can, and must, do more to battle this opioid and heroin epidemic.

  #SavingBobby #Addiction #OpioidEpidemic #OpioidAddiction #AddictionRecovery

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  Renee Hodges
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  Unlike other books about addiction, SAVING BOBBY begins after Bobby has left the structure
  and protection of multiple rehabilitation centers and half-way houses. Told in part through
  journal entries and e-mails, this raw, moving memoir describes a naïve aunt’s deeply personal
  journey grappling with her own family’s history of addiction, the crippling ripple-down effect of
  the disease in other generations, and the resources and holistic process used to help Bobby
  reclaim his life

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  She Writes Press
  Book Author "Saving Bobby"
  Company NameShe Writes Press
  Dates Employed2015 – Present Employment Duration3 yrs
  LocationNorth Carolina
  Release date of May 1st, 2018. Unlike other books about addiction, SAVING BOBBY begins after Bobby has left the structure and protection of multiple rehabilitation centers and half-way houses. Told in part through journal entries and e-mails, this raw, moving memoir describes a naïve aunt’s deeply personal journey grappling with her own family’s history of addiction, the crippling ripple-down effect of the disease in other generations, and the resources and holistic process used to help Bobby reclaim his life. It is markedly clear that Bobby’s success was due in great part to having support from a caring community willing to move past the shame and stigma of addiction. But for all the efforts made on Bobby’s behalf, the most important decision in the end was his. Ultimately, Bobby realized that he had to save himself. A riveting and heartrending story of survival, SAVING BOBBY is an essential, timely read for those concerned about America’s most pressing epidemic.

  Self-Employed
  Co-Author and Self-Publisher of the Best Kept Secrets Series of Guides
  Company NameSelf-Employed
  Dates Employed1987 – 1992 Employment Duration5 yrs
  Presidential Campaign
  Registration Head during a Presidential Campaign in New York City
  Company NamePresidential Campaign
  Dates EmployedJun 1983 – Nov 1984 Employment Duration1 yr 6 mos
  LocationGreater New York City Area
  Ski Resort Jobs
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  Texas State House of Representatives
  Campaign Manager for a Candidate for the Texas State House of Representatives 68th Legislature
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Quoted in Sidelights: “strikingly personal and lyrically told through emails (to herself, therapeutically, as well as to others), narration, drug-related articles, and bittersweet memories.” “a heartfelt, inspiring, and deeply moving chronology of substance abuse and enduring, unconditional familial love.”

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Hodges, Renee: SAVING BOBBY
Kirkus Reviews.
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Hodges, Renee SAVING BOBBY She Writes Press (Indie Fiction) $16.95 5, 1 ISBN: 978-1-63152-375-5
A woman faces drug addiction when it arrives on her doorstep in the form of family. As a wife and mother
of three children, the North Carolina author knew how important support, guidance, and unconditional love
were to a child. Her parental courageousness was put to the test when her brother John shared a serious
issue involving his 29-year-old son, Bobby, who became addicted to back pain medication in college and
then moved on to heroin. Years spent in and out of rehabilitation facilities had worn Bobby down, and now
he was on the streets and feeling suicidal. In 2013, Hodges (co-author: The Triangle Home Book, 1989)
welcomed him into her and her husband Will's home and embarked on a year that proved to be one of the
couple's greatest and most emotionally challenging periods. When a close friend lost her own son to an
overdose, the reality of Hodges' family situation hit home. Despite becoming buoyed by regular contact
with her psychologist, the author struggled to relate to Bobby's late-night pacing, emotional immaturity, the
staggering amount of physician-prescribed, mood-altering medications he took daily, and his sky-high drug
tolerance that made a scheduled colonoscopy impossible. Throughout the stirring memoir, Hodges deftly
weaves in personal impressions about her life, her checkered past with her brother, and her strained
marriage to Will. She notes that she considered herself blessed and "privileged," which made her sense of
empathy and compassion for others heightened, especially when Bobby began to open up emotionally to
her in the early stages of his stay with her and Will. As days turned to weeks, Hodges soothed her anxiety
around Bobby by enacting house rules that restricted him from stealing, lying, and using drugs but that also
proactively offered direction, purpose, and tools for his much-needed stabilization. In her richly detailed
account, the author recalls her myriad reactions to Bobby's plight. Lacking experience in caring for an
addict, Hodges was initially hopeful but soon became exhausted with the obsessive push and pull of drug
compulsion and fragmented emotions that had become her nephew's sole existence. Bobby's eventual
relapse and sudden departure took her by surprise but seemed somehow necessary in order to bring them
closer together. Her ordeal is strikingly personal and lyrically told through emails (to herself,
therapeutically, as well as to others), narration, drug-related articles, and bittersweet memories of her own
history of trying to come to terms with a formerly close-knit family that fractured after her father died.
"Addiction is exhausting and relentless," she writes in a poignant section pondering the emotional and
physical toll drug abuse had taken on her entire family. Hodges' bracing year with Bobby ended on an
upbeat note as her nephew took the initiative to embrace a fulfilling life structured around work, school, and
recovery. The author closes her engrossing story with sobering facts and useful resource materials on the
drug abuse epidemic suffocating the nation. A heartfelt, inspiring, and deeply moving chronology of
substance abuse and enduring, unconditional familial love.
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• Story Circle Book Reviews
  http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/savingbobby.shtml
  Word count: 787

  Quoted in Sidelights: “Enough cannot be said about Renee Hodges’ “change the world.” “The Hodges’ practical day-to-day structures, successes, failures, and thoughts found within the pages of this memoir can guide families who also struggle with how to help a loved one addicted to opioids.” “is an easy-to-read narrative.” “most readers won’t want to put it down.”

  Saving Bobby:
  Heroes and Heroin in One Small Community
  by Renee Hodges

  She Writes Press, 2018. ISBN 978-1-631-52375-5.
  Reviewed by Shawn LaTorre
  Posted on 05/01/2018
  Review of the Month, June 2018
  Nonfiction: Memoir; Nonfiction: Life Lessons; Nonfiction: Faith/Spirituality/Inspiration
  (click on book cover or title to buy from amazon.com)

  "In 2016 alone, over 42,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses—a twenty eight percent increase compared to 2015. Deaths from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids doubled." —Lisa Hicks, Austin American Statesman, April 28, 2018
  "What happened here? Over ten years ago, doctors began assessing pain as a fifth vital sign. Physicians were instructed to reduce pain levels by prescribing any number of pain medications. Shortly thereafter, millions of Americans were beginning to use opiate based medications for even moderate levels of discomfort." —B. Georgi, Clinical Addiction Specialist

  Enough cannot be said about Renee Hodges' courageous memoir chronicling a nearly two-year period in which she and her husband Will took in what seemed to be a terminal, hopeless-case opioid junkie—Renee's nephew, Bobby. President Trump may make mention of our country's current opioid crisis, but policies alone cannot accomplish what the small community depicted here in Durham, North Carolina did, as led by Renee Hodges. She states: "I didn't go into my nephew Bobby's recovery with any professional experience, but...if I wanted to help my loved one, I should surround him with an atmosphere of full disclosure and transparency, a supportive place where he could not hide nor be hidden...Addiction is not a parenting failure or something to be embarrassed about. Secrecy, cover-ups, excuses, and denial do not help an addict or recovery."

  Hodges enlists the help of her own psychologist, a psychotherapist for Bobby, friends, church members, neighbors and eventually even her husband Will warms up to Bobby. Renee believes that Bobby will "change the world" in setting himself on the right path to independence, but I believe this memoir—that is, the story alone—could also change the world.

  The Hodges' practical day-to-day structures, successes, failures, and thoughts found within the pages of this memoir can guide families who also struggle with how to help a loved one addicted to opioids. Uncompromising in love and support, this family strives to stay hopeful in the face of overwhelmingly unfavorable odds. Because it is an easy-to-read narrative with journal entries, emails, and texts intertwined, most readers won't want to put it down. I cried, knowing that Bobby was relapsing at one point, but bolstered myself upon reading his therapist George's comment, "Bobby's recovery has to be Bobby's recovery." It's the emotional rollercoaster of addiction that just keeps readers unsure of the outcome.

  In my world, I know of five deaths of young people due to opioid overdosing, so this book spoke to me in many, many ways and on multiple levels. As Hodges writes, "It was staggering to discover how many people in my circle of friends, in my neighborhood and community, were on a parallel journey, dealing with addiction in their own families, and dealing alone." We know... and thank you, Renee Hodges, simply, thank you.

  Renee Hodges has Louisiana roots, but for the past thirty years have called North Carolina home. She has experience as a political campaign manager for a Texas senator, has worked at a ski resort, volunteered as a recruiter and registration manager for a presidential campaign in New York City. She is a wife, mother of three, writer, investor, community volunteer, avid tennis player, and saver of lives. Visit her website.

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