Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Down — Anita Ballard-Jones

Josey was pregnant, struggling to overcome her cocaine addiction, and determined her baby would not be born an addict like her second daughter, Kelly. After three attempts to clean up, Sabur, Josey's husband continued offering her an endless supply of cocaine to keep her under his control. Finally, Josey ran away, and with the help of Sabur's mother, Sadie, she entered a long term rehabilitation facility and vowed she would never return to her husband. The only problem was that Sabur was a powerful and anonymous drug financier, and Josey loved him more than she feared him. Did Josey want what Sadie wanted for her and their children? Did she just want Sabur to love her and change their way of life, or did she have a choice? Dr. Pearson, Josey's psychologist at the Springwood Rehabilitation Center, had no knowledge of Josey's husband's involvement in her repeated relapses. He had Josey seek the underlying cause of her substance abuse by having her return to her early years, reliving her past, and analyzing her old memories. Josey begins thinking back to her childhood, to when the horrors began; to a time when she and her brothers and sister had to fight most of their young lives for survival while their parents were strung out on heroin; to a time when their parents had turned their apartment in a Brooklyn, New York housing project into a junkie's hangout.