this is a genuine rare bird book
Rare Bird
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013
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Copyright © 2020 by John Hanrahan
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address:
Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013.
Set in Minion
Printed in the United States
epub isbn: 9781644281529
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hanrahan, John M., author.
Title: Wrestling with Angels: A True Story of Addiction, Resurrection, Hope, Fashion, Training Celebrities, and Man’s Oldest Sport / John Hanrahan.
Description: First Hardcover Edition | A Genuine Rare Bird Book | New York, NY;
Los Angeles, CA: Rare Bird Books, 2020.
Identifiers: ISBN: 9781644281147
Subjects: LCSH Hanrahan, John, author. | Wrestlers—United States—Biography. | Athletes—United States—Biography. | Models (Persons)—United States—Biography. | Personal trainers—Biography. | Fathers and sons—Biography. | Drug addicts—
United States—Biography. | Drug addicts—Family relationships—United States. |
BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs |
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Sports
Classification: LCC GV331.H36 2020 | DDC 613.7/1092—dc23
This book is dedicated to my family, and to all the families across the nation that have endured and are enduring the challenges of addiction. It is my hope that this book’s honest portrayal of a personal perspective, as well as a loving parent’s perspective, will help to provide hope and inspiration to those families to never give up. To those who are no longer here—including Gerry Harrington, who helped countless others with his generous spirit of hope and healing—this book is my prayer that those suffering gain the strength to conquer their challenges and that those who have lost loved ones know that their prayers were not unheard.
Contents
OUR ANGEL WRESTLES WITH ADDICTION
THE END & THE BEGINNING
“Have you planned his funeral?”
That’s what the doctor said: Have you planned his funeral?
He said this to us in a matter-of-fact way. Because it was pretty much a fact: Connor, our son, our firstborn, just nineteen years old, had been laid to waste by addiction.