Off the Rails

In this award-winning memoir, you’ll meet Hannah, a young girl who has a promising future until she suddenly spirals into sex, drugs, alcohol, and other high-risk behaviors. Off the Rails: One Family’s Journey Through Teen Addiction narrates Hannah’s decline and subsequent treatment through the raw, honest, compelling voices of Hannah and her shocked and desperate mothereach one telling her side of the story.

Fearing that they couldn’t keep their teen safe, Hannah’s parents make the agonizing decision to send her to a wilderness program, and then to residential treatment. Off the Rails tells the story of the two tough years Hannah spent in three separate programsand ponders the factors that contributed to her ultimate recovery.

Written for families facing challenges and those that wish to support them, Off the Rails is an inspiring story of love, determination, and a last-resort intervention, as a mother and daughter lose, and then try to find each other again.

Author Biography

Susan Burrowes is a presenter, teacher, trainer and project manager who holds a Master’s Degree in Communication, but took enough time out of her studies to produce the two extraordinary, challenging, terrible, wonderful children who continue to define her life.

An award-winning author, Susan’s day jobs span fifteen years in advertising, eight years teaching in the college classroom and another ten years training professionals in organizations how to communicate with each other, an irony that was not lost on her as she struggled to reach her addicted daughter.

Susan currently works with a team of high achieving young adults in Admissions at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she ponders the question of teen success on a daily basis. She writes about the strength and determination of troubled teens and special needs children.