This work tells how Jerry Stahl - father, husband, writer and heroin addict - slipped into an opiated abyss, and how he clawed his way out. Starting life as the prototypical middle-class kid, he endured his father's early death, his mother's descent into major depression and life on his own from the age of 16. After penning scripts for cult film classics like Cafe Flesh, he ended up writing for network TV, including scripts for Moonlighting and Thirtysomething. However, beneath the successful front ran a toxic undercurrent of betrayal and madness, hard narcotics and hardcore sex.