Excerpt: Cracked by Drew Pinsky

Aug. 28 -- Dr. Drew Pinsky might be best known as co-host of the syndicated radio show, Loveline, but some of his most intense experiences have unfolded when he is off the air.

As the medical director for the Department of Chemical Dependency Services, Pinsky has treated the most desperate cases of alcohol and drug dependency.

In his latest book, Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again, Pinksy gives readers a unique look into the world of addiction and recovery.

The following is excerpted from chapter one of Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Againby Drew Pinsky.

It's the second week of a warm August. Early morning. The first one in my family to rise from bed, I shuffle into the kitchen, start the coffee, and get the newspaper at the end of the driveway. We live in a ranch-style home perched on the edge of a canyon in the hills above Pasadena, with deer and coyotes on the prowl, and it's so lovely and quiet at this hour I might as well be five hundred miles from the harshness of the city.

The headlines snap me back to reality. I read the Los Angeles Times sports section, sip coffee between box scores, and enjoy the quiet. Soon my wife, Susan, joins me, followed by the triplets, age ten, who gobble down breakfast, give us kisses, and go off to summer camp.

Outside, the sun begins its climb into a clear blue sky, and I know it's going to be, in the words of Randy Newman, "another perfect day" in L.A.Perfect for some, perhaps. But not for my patients in the chemical dependency unit at Las Encinas Hospital, a no-frills, twenty-two-bed facility popularly known as "rehab." The truth? For many who occupy those beds, it's their last chance before death. To me, it encompasses everything from desperation to the miracle of giving someone a second or third chance at life, at a better life, actually, than they ever dreamed of being able to have.

From the time I back out of my driveway, it takes me twenty minutes to get there. Once I enter the unit, the warm sun is replaced by the low-voltage hum of fluorescent lights. The perfect L.A. day disappears like a song fading from the radio. I step on linoleum, not grass. And when I look up, instead of endless blue sky, I see Ernesto from Operations staring back down at me from inside the ceiling, where he's fixing the air conditioning."Good morning, Dr. Pinsky," he says warmly.