Title: In Search of a Salve: Memoir of a Sex Addict

Author: KE Garland

Publisher: ‎ New Reads Publications

Published: September 26, 2023

Pages: 326

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“I was nine years old when I figured out that if I squeezed my legs together hard enough, it would create the most electrifying pulsation, in the general area my mother, her mother, and her mother called our “killa cricket.”

-KE Garland

In Search of a Salve snatches us into the author’s world with the rawness of a Sister Souljah book. Like Winter Santiaga, KE Garland has no sugarcoated, watered-down stories to tell you.

Unlike Winter, Kathy’s story is no fairytale.

The author takes us through the series of tragic incidents that led to her preoccupation with sex, including child-on-child molestation, car accidents, and the death of her adoptive mother. Garland expertly reveals how she utilized sex as a salve for a wound she wasn’t completely aware even existed, leading her down a path of multiple sex partners and abortions.

However, don’t assume this book is about the author’s naughty antics. This memoir stands out because it doesn’t only list regrettable events and bad decisions. What’s important is the linkages between how trauma impacts the body, permeates the mind, and results in addiction.

“I didn’t cheat because I had a vanilla sex life. I cheated to escape the discomfort of trauma.”

-KE Garland

We learn how cognitive therapy helped the author to pay more attention to her thinking and the meaning of key terms like exhibitionism or the urge to show yourself to others in public. These explanations helped me better understand the author’s actions beyond the physical, such as the disconnect that exists when the mother-child bond is broken early in life, resulting in a dysregulated nervous system.

“No oxytocin. No emotional bonding. No maternal attachment. Emotionally dysregulated….I began life, like most babies, listening for the sound of my mother’s voice and never found it, and I’d never stop longing for her.”

-KE Garland

This book prompted me to have more compassion for the lived experiences of people who struggle with addictions that society has deemed as nothing more than an immoral decision, but that is much more layered. As Garland searched for a salve, I, too, discovered insight into questions about my own trauma, belonging, and motherhood.

“I was motherless and it hurt whenever I didn’t have one to show up for me.”

-KE Garland

KE Garland courageously uses her story as a catalyst for further instruction about not only sex addiction but addiction in general.

In Search of a Salve will break your heart, pierce your soul, and then soothe you with knowledge about sex, trauma, despair, and the root of these behaviors beyond poor life decisions.

Ratings:

• Strong Introduction: 5/5
• Authenticity / Believable: 5/5
• Organization: 5/5
• Thought Provoking: 5/5
• Solid Conclusion: 5/5

Overall: 5/5

It’s Release Day!!

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