Double Helix A Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, and Jazz in Two Voices

In 1968, Ed was a 39 year-old African-American parolee, heroin addict, and sometimes jazz singer from Watts, California. Diane was a naïve 24-year old Jewish girl from the Bronx. People said they had no business being together, and their many troubled years of marriage, divorce, reconciliation, more separation and ultimate bottoming out seemed to prove them right—almost. Double Helix is an intensely evocative and unsentimental story told in alternating narrative voices that follows the turbulent, decades-long journey of two people from different worlds whose lives, continually spiraling around each other like a double helix, are really two intertwined stories.

Double Helix traces Ed's 40 tumultuous years of drug addiction, four stints in prison, near death overdoses, treatment programs and mental hospitals, relapses, and homelessness. It also describes how Diane's desire to help a loved one crossed a boundary from healthy support to detrimental enabling, or codependency, that prevented her from holding him accountable, letting go, and living her own life. Each eventually found a path to recovery, bringing new challenges and Ed's dazzling rise as a nationally renowned jazz singer. Double Helix conveys a compelling message—not only is change possible, but it is never too late to realize your dreams.

Ed Reed was a heroin and cocaine addict for 40 years. Since beginning his recovery in 1986, Ed has worked with addicts/alcoholics, families, and programs as a health educator, lecturer, program developer, trainer and consultant inspiring others to change their lives through recovery. In 2007, Ed began a late-life career as a jazz singer, performer, and recording artist. He has released four critically acclaimed CDs, performed on world-class stages nationally and internationally, and has been extensively interviewed by print journalists and on jazz radio stations. In 2014, at age 85, Ed was voted #1 Rising Star in the Male Vocalist category by DownBeat critics.Diane Reed has over 30 years' experience as a consultant in public health providing policy analysis, research and writing, evaluation assistance, and grant writing services to public and private agencies, and community-based organizations. She holds a Master of Public Health degree in policy and planning from U.C. Berkeley and has co-authored academic articles published in the Journal of Public Health Policy and the Health Education Quarterly. She and Ed co-authored an article about the children of incarcerated parents, published in Social Justice. After making her living writing, Diane is now exploring the joy of finding her voice as a creative nonfiction writer.