Suburban Junky

From Honor Roll to Heroin Addict (Tenth Anniversary)

De: Jude Hassan

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Jude Hassan was an ordinary, all-American kid. He had two amazing parents who gave him everything, especially a loving home. At fourteen, Jude's family moved from their home in the city to a beautiful suburban town on the outskirts of St. Louis. Suddenly, Jude was faced with being the new kid for the first time in his young life. He struggled to find his way in his new surroundings but continued to make straight A’s and excel in sports. When a fellow student approached him about attending a party, he was apprehensive but eager to experience his first social gathering. Unfortunately, that was the night that Jude was introduced to marijuana. Within weeks, Jude was experimenting with harder drugs, including prescription pills. Eventually, he was introduced to heroin as a sophomore and his life was never the same. Slowly but surely, he lost everything. It took multiple stints in rehab, two enforced jail detoxes, his father’s cancer diagnosis, and a looming multi-decade prison sentence to bring him back from the dark hole he found himself in.

A note from the author:

“When I first wrote Suburban Junky, the United States was in the midst of a relentless heroin epidemic. Ten years later, it pains me to say that things have only gotten worse. Heroin has taken a back seat to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid one-hundred times stronger than morphine and fifty times stronger than heroin. In 2021, drug overdose deaths topped 100,000 for the first time on record. That amounts to one overdose death every five minutes. To make matters even worse, counterfeit pills have flooded the streets. Illegal pill presses are churning out fentanyl-laced Percocets and Xanax bars at an alarming rate. In turn, these pills are then pushed to unsuspecting teens and addicts all across the country. It’s a toxic combination that has led to incredible pain and suffering and far too many deaths.

I hope that my story will help bring awareness to the perils of teenage drug use. I hope that my story saves the kid out there who might be lost, or stuck at a crossroads like I was. Finally, for those already suffering, there is life after drugs. It is beautiful and achievable.”

Wonderful story of healing and family values.

The AI voice was very annoying, but the story was captivating. I will not listen to that kind of voice again.

True Story

Awesome book, the only thing I don't like is the narrator is AI. That's some BS !!!

Good book, terrible AI narrator.

Audible let an AI read out the whole book with text-to-speech. It’s awful! It’s very monotone and it sounds like a deep voiced fully grown man although he’s talking as if he’s a high schooler… It just doesn’t work, the narrator voice doesn’t inflect for reading women’s lines and it just becomes hard to focus or grasp who is who. It’s impressive for AI but it’s not human enough for audiobooks yet in my opinion.

The book itself is pretty good though! It’s not a masterpiece or anything, it’s kind of written like a young-adult book would read, not too complicated or detailed. But the story is good and believable! Very relatable to me at least. Glad it doesn’t bash Methadone! It, combined with a 12 Step program like AA, are amazing tools for saving lives!!!