Driving to Michigan - Paperback

by Robert Brent (Author)

Driving to Michigan is a story about a family driving cross-country together. It features "boomer" parents who are traveling with their two adult "millennial" children in the confined space of a pickup truck. The story takes place during the time of the Covid pandemic, which adds another level of complexity and hilarity to the trek. While they are all together in the close quarters of the vehicle, the family converses with each other about all manner of topics and current events. This includes subject matter related to individual members of the family as well as to the world at large. Each family member has opportunities to express their own opinions about the world and their place in it. The other family members then have equal opportunity to respond and offer their own opinions. Naturally, boomers and millennials are not usually aligned on how they view and interact with each other or with the world. This is a recurring theme as this conflicted family drives from south to north and then back south again, transporting precious cargo on the way back home.

While they are traveling, the family covers all manner of topics like Covid, diversity-equity-inclusion, universal basic income, climate change, environmental-social-governance, partner abuse, drug abuse, pornography, body dysmorphia, bodybuilding, addiction, rehabilitation, death, mortuaries, funerals, and even redemption. t's a story that is highly relevant to families today. The author has written it so that it is both funny and tragic. He reminds you that, without a sense of humor and other coping skills, the runaway reality of addictive behavior and its aftermath can harm you or kill you or both. He also makes clear that your behavior can be equally damaging to the people around you who love and care for you the most.

There are so many families in America who have had to deal with the scourge of addiction. Addiction comes in many forms, some obvious and some much more subversive. With responsible families, addiction is not something you can ignore. If you do ignore it when it comes for your family, it's at the peril of you and your children. In Driving to Michigan, the author demonstrates how addiction can present itself as an irresistibly attractive and seductive pull to its negative core. He shows how it draws you in with a force of gravity and that, if you're not careful, it can pull you in past the point of no return. You can never let it pull you past that point. Addiction is a formidable demon with devastating force. Once someone is pulled into its orbit, it's nearly impossible to escape. When it comes for your family, what can you do? How do you prepare? How do you keep it away? And then, if it does break through your force field of protection, how do you fight it once it's inside? Unchecked, addiction will ravage everything and everyone you hold dear.

Driving to Michigan reminds us that addiction does not always present itself in an obvious manner in the early stages. It can be hidden, subterranean, lurking until it manifests out in the open with a vengeance. The author shows what it's like to be part of a family that is forced to deal with the unwanted reality of addictive behavior. He shows what kind of coping skills must be developed to deal with it, especially when it has overtaken other family members. By the end of the story the reader is offered a way of looking at the world. Is the universe a Hobbesian, malevolent, and deadly place, or is it a more benevolent and conscious place where you can develop yourself as a compassionate, sentient being. It offers a way to cope with tragedy and to maintain sanity in the midst of all the temptation and confusion of the world. The story demonstrates a life-altering test of emotional endurance and human perseverance by never giving up on your family.