Mary Weiland “Fall To Pieces: A Memoir Of Drugs, Rock ‘N’ Roll, and Mental Illness”

Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll, and Mental Illness List Price: $25.99 Sale Price: $12.54 Used From: $12.54 Average Rating:

Description

In March 2007, twenty-four hours after Mary Weiland dragged her husband Scott's pricey rock-star wardrobe onto their driveway and torched it, she was locked up in a mental hospital. Watching all this were her frightened extended family, a conflicted husband wrestling with demons of his own, and a tabloid industry gone gleeful at the "Bonfire in Toluca Lake!" To the outside world, Weiland had led what seemed to be an enviable life. A successful international model in the nineties, she married her longtime sweetheart—famed lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots and, later, Velvet Revolver, Scott Weiland—in 2000. Mary was the sane one, went the story—it was the tempestuous, unpredictable Scott who was crazy. In her gripping memoir Fall to Pieces, Mary Weiland reveals that the truth is somewhere in between. From her earliest days in San Diego, Weiland displayed signs of trouble: a black depression that sometimes left her immobile for days, a temper that sent her into wild rages she didn't understand, an overdose. But her fierce determination to "have more" led to early success as a model. At sixteen, she fell in love at first sight with Scott Weiland, then an aspiring musician who was hired to drive her to and from modeling gigs. Slowly, her casual relationship with beer and pot grew into an affair with cocaine and heroin that rivaled her love for Scott, who was addicted as well. From rehab to rehab, from breakup to reconciliation to eventual marriage, the couple fought their way back, welcomed the babies they'd dreamed of, and hoped their struggles were behind them. Then came the bonfire breakdown and the full onset of Mary's bipolar disorder, a widely misunderstood and misdiagnosed mental illness that affects more than five million Americans and had been, in fact, stalking Mary Weiland since her teens. With refreshing candor, innate comic timing, and earned wisdom, Weiland recounts the extreme highs and lows of her life, including an unforgettable love affair with the man she always knew she'd marry, the careers and rock tours that took them around the world, and her fight to finally come to grips with the addictions that could have killed her. In her journey to understand and manage her bipolar disorder, she takes the reader on a wild ride into the dark and back into the light.

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061719158
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Reviews

I knew nothing about Mary and Scott Weiland before reading this book. I did not expect this book to be such a page turner. Not only is the writing fact paced and entertaining, it has incredible depth. Weiland chose a very gifted ghost writer to tell her tale, a writer who manages to get out of the way of the swing, so to speak. The writer avoids cliches, platitudes and stereotypes and manages to educate the reader about addiction and depression. I think this book has a lot of integrity and while it is described as a tell-all, it only seems to tell what is important to Mary Weiland. Even if the people involved in this story were not famous, I would find this book riveting and compelling as it explores the connection between depression and the propensity to self medicate, which leads to addiction. One find one's self thinking about one's own life and the people we know and love who suffer from addictions. After completing this book, one will have a new found empathy for those who suffer from addictions while discarding a judgmental attitude. Scott and Mary are star crossed because the very thing that draws them together is also the very thing that could eventually destroy them. Near the end, I found myself weeping for their love which was not to be. This book is extremely well written and not at all what you might expect. I highly recommend it.

I read about this book in a magazine and wanted to give it a try. It was WELL worth spending the money for a hardback. This book is an amazing story of the struggles Mary has gone through in life. I simply can't say enough good about it. I couldn't put it down the second I started it. It is very well written and done in a very tasteful way. I HIGHLY recommend it.

Living in Seattle in the '90s gives you either an antipathy or appreciation for grunge music, and for me it was the latter. I always knew fame in that world came at a cost, and Scott Weiland's history of drug abuse is a cautionary tale made extremely public over the past two decades. I knew absolutely nothing about his personal life (sorry, not that avid a fan) but the clothes bonfire made front pages across newspapers in print and online the world over. So I expected Mrs. Weiland's book to be a scathing defamation of her ex-husband's character, blaming everything on him and STP - and it was anything but. Brutally honest, tinged with dark humor, this is more a candid look at her own dark journey into the abyss, which was tangential to his. It is a naked admission to co-dependence, co-enabling, and the habits of two people lost in a cloud of heroin and coke. I found it very well edited; Mrs. Weiland's "voice" really comes through. I've enjoyed getting to know her as more than that crazy woman who torched 80k worth of clothing.

if you are looking for that Scott Weiland insight, not a lot of it. After reading, somethings really didn't connect with their relationship, didn't quite buy some of the stuff she was saying. Yeah it's a good read, some interesting stuff. But I think she makes Scott out to be one that let go of the relationship and on the contrary, I believe her not getting the necessary help sooner was the nail in the coffin for the relationship.

Mary Forsberg Weiland's //Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock `n' Roll, and Mental Illness// is a brutally honest account of something many of don't ever think of. She was born into uncertainty to young parents who, even after two attempts at marriage, didn't last. With constant moving, Mary never had the time to adjust or to make lasting friends. Eventually, her path landed her on the runway and she became a very successful model. Scott, who was hired by the modeling firm to drive her to her appointments, ended up becoming famous himself as the lead in the punk rock band Stone Temple Pilots. Eventually, they were married. But it's far from happily ever after. Drugs were a part of Mary's life for a while, and falling in love with a drug addicted rock star didn't help matters much. The book is loaded with these drug-induced escapades that keep you holding on page after page. But what kept my attention the most weren't the drugs, sex, and music, but her struggles with bipolar disorder. I had often thought of this as an insignificant issue, much like ADD, but after Mary's in-depth self-reflection gave me a new respect and understanding I didn't previously have. You won't be sorry you read this book. Reviewed by Jennifer LeBrun