Böckem:Lass mich die Nacht überleben

He is a journalist in Hamburg, writing for the most well-known German newspapers and magazines. And he is a junkie. At the age of 14, he fell in love with the drug high, back in the small town of Erkelenz in North Rhine-Westphalia: hashish, LSD, amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin. At 19, his heroin addiction lands him in prison for the first time, and at 33, the journalist attempts to strangle his girlfriend after an overdose. In this factual novel, the author breaks his years of silence and recounts his life as a journalist and junkie: of seduction and despair, imprisonment and hepatitis, parties and porn shoots, career and coma, abstinence and downfall. Like many other drug addicts who find success in their profession and continue to function, he led a double life with addiction for many years—consumed by fear of failure, shame, self-hatred, and the constant craving for heroin. Twenty years after its first publication, the Hamburg edition presents a significantly expanded new edition of this former Spiegel bestseller, supplemented by selected literary and journalistic texts that were published in Tempo, Zeit, and Spiegel, recounting their creation in Hamburg. Additionally, the new edition includes, for the first time, photographs of the author from the time of the events.