Six Days in Detox Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses addiction, alcoholism, mental health, and trauma.

I’ve read plenty of harrowing tales both for and outside the website. Some have stayed in my mind because of how well-written they were. On the other hand, if it’s poorly communicated, then I’m not going to get into as much despite the horrific situation being described. This was the case for the memoir Six Days in Detox by Dianne Corbeau. Even though it does a great job detailing what life is like for an addict detoxing in the worst place possible, I struggled to get fully invested because of its repetitiveness and editing issues.

Six Days in Detox is a memoir about the author’s time in an institution while she recovers from addiction. Dianne picked up alcohol after 26 years of sobriety. After a near-death experience, she is placed in a mental institution, beginning her journey back into recovery. Despite certain forces in that place, she gives it her all to survive the battle of her life. It takes a hard look at what goes on with an addict internally and externally.

I know I said this quite a lot when reviewing memoirs that deal with intense situations, but I couldn’t believe that actually happened to Dianne aka the author. The mental institution she was placed in sounds like the cruelest place ever. Everyone, including Dianne, is not given the proper medication that they need despite the orders from a prior doctor. Dianne’s roommate is awful, as in she thinks that Satan is out to get her and that people are stealing her stuff. I was happy when Dianne stood up to her. The worst thing is the head nurse whose only job is to supposedly make Dianne’s life truly miserable, especially when he doesn’t call her name to get her meds. He was so horrible that the only other person who would be friends with him is Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’m thankful that Dianne only spent six days in that place.

The biggest strength of this memoir is how it explores an addict’s mindset. Dianne has manic depression, and she suspects she got this from her abusive biological mother whom she left at age 8. She spends the rest of childhood being homeless and later a drug addict. Luckily, she was able to become sober at 19, but during her sobriety, she kept thinking of the unresolved issues and emotions regarding her upbringing. To avoid reminding herself of them, she turned back to drinking even though she spent nearly 30 years on the wagon and worked as a professor. It’s during her time in the mental institution that makes her realize that recovery is a life-long process, and she needs to keep working at it to avoid relapsing again. At one point, Dianne expresses fear about what life would be like after leaving the horrific place because she doesn’t know what being sober is going to look like for her this time. I like how the memoir ends on an ambiguous note as a result. 

Six Days in Detox could be a great memoir if it weren’t for the repetition and glaring editing issues. Throughout, Dianne kept bringing up certain points. These include the trauma she encountered, how awful the head nurse was, how much she needed her medications, how her organs were shutting down, and the fact that she had been sober for 26 years. In certain situations, I would overlook these repeatings. This is not one of those because it’s less than 150 pages and has seven chapters with six devoted to each day Dianne was in the mental institution. This disrupted the flow.

Before I go into the critique about the glaring editing issues, I have to make a confession. Before I publish my reviews, I have my husband Carl, who is a car journalist, look them over. It’s the reason why they are as polished as they could get. When I read certain parts of Six Days in Detox, I had to look them over at least twice and kept thinking of how the editor didn’t catch them. For example, part of a sentence is repeated twice in a single paragraph (p. 116). All I know is if Carl was editing this memoir, those errors would have been corrected immediately because he’s that good at his job (and I’m not saying that because he’s my husband).

Six Days in Detox by Dianne Corbeau has the potential to be a great memoir. It has a harrowing story about one woman’s stay at the worst mental institution possible while detoxing. In addition, it offers powerful insight into a user’s mindset when it comes to addiction and the struggle for sobriety. However, it kept repeating itself and contained some obvious editing errors. As a result, this slowed the flow and made me less invested in the story as I should be. I would only recommend this to readers who are curious to learn about what it means to be an addict. It’s a shame that the memoir is not as well constructed as it should be because the story is truly a powerful tale about recovery and overcoming addiction.

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