Finding North:
A Journey from Addict to Advocate
by Marilyn L. Davis
Non-Fiction – Memoir
256 Pages

Reviewed on 04/10/2021 ~ Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers’ Favorite

Finding North: A Journey from Addict to Advocate by Marilyn L Davis takes readers on a journey of the author’s life. Marilyn speaks about addiction and how easy it was to experiment with her mom’s pills at a young age to escape from reality where she was unhappy because of a strained home and miserable school life. Her success story will inspire many readers who lead dangerous lifestyles because of their addictions and encourage them to emerge from addiction. She also speaks about the setbacks and struggles of addiction and the lifelong lessons they taught her. The author’s story and her vision give hope to addicts. It is a good guide for readers who are addicts to escape from their addiction and get started on their healing and recovery.

The memoir is raw and honest, and the author minces no words when it comes to sharing her story. Addicts will be able to connect with the author’s words, the commonality of their feelings, thoughts, and poor choices they made in their addiction, and finally the redemption that happens through the recovery phase. The author also shows how different yet distinctly typical an addict’s path is.


The story of how North House came into existence is also quite interesting. Her success story will make addicts come to terms with their loss and find ways to heal and get on with their lives. Finding North: A Journey from Addict to Advocate is a good page-turner and Marilyn L Davis’s story will give courage, hope, and determination to addicts to get free from their addiction and pain, and finally find their way to healing, and leading good lives.

Finding North: A Journey from Addict to Advocate is now available on Amazon in both e-book and paperback formats.

Cat’s Book Review on Amazon

What will you learn from this beautiful memoir?
What overcoming drug addiction looks like and much more!

Exceptionally written from page one to the last, the author shares just how easy it was for her to begin experimenting with drugs at a young age as she shares her life with readers. Her writing style and layout of her memoirs are impeccable, as it made me keep reading to learn what happens next!

Marilyn writes in a “teachable” and “relatable” way as she shares her early years of managing rock bands and such. We all know “The Candy” was always available back in the days when she managed rock bands. Her life memoirs are about overcoming, loss, perseverance, hope, and inspiration. Then, a chance meeting with a Native American man who spiritually points out her future, she took it to heart in her early recovery.

After saving her life within her recovery’s hard work, she gives us the inside look of how generational addiction can happen, as both her daughters began addicts. Then came the real work of opening North House; she and managed North House, an award-winning residential facility for women. A women’s safe house of healing as I see it.

She began to help both her daughters become clean and drug-free. Marilyn has been on her journey and has celebrated 32-years of recovery while keeping her recovery journey moving forward. The author shows us the hard work it takes in early recovery to learn the roots and the underlying addiction issues, process them, and begin the power of healing within recovery.

I highly suggest everyone read this book if you want to be inspired by an amazing woman’s authentic memoir turned ‘Recovery Warrior’ through caring, empathy, and turned a call to action to bring solutions from addiction, even still today.

Advocate, Catherine Lyon of Lyon Media Services & Literary Consulting

Amazon 5-Star Book Review By

DeeDeeTee 5.0 out of 5 stars “…a chance encounter with Gray Hawk…” leads to new life, new purpose
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2021
Verified Purchase

The book blurb called it “a chance encounter with Gray Hawk,” yet Gray Hawk believed it was an element of his destiny.

There are twists and turns from the parents stylized by the author’s perception extending from childhood escape, into addiction, through collapse of the family and into a personal redemption through shared service to others.

There are several additional stories here. Mother. Father. Family. Community.

This book maintains focus on the author’s relationship to manipulation, addiction, self-assessment, games of delusion and sustaining the illusion, “things are ok.” Still, there are the loose ends of those lives, the question of how the author slid down this road, not another, and the question why and how Gray Hawk came to play the role he did.

The writing style is straightforward and relentless, with the simple force you see at an AA meeting: “Hi, I’m so-and-so and I’m an alcoholic.” It’s fascinating to see simultaneous incongruent thought tracks: the external reality, against the internal mental contortions to have everything seem normal. “You think you’re Machiavelli but you’re really Bozo the clown” she’s told at one point. This author does not imbue events with grandiose significance or deep meaning. Readers may wish to do that.

Each of the 105 short chapters has a point without breaking the flow – it’s autobiographical after all. Extracted into focus by time and perspective, the chapters sometimes include bittersweet zingers.

At the end of the telling, the question remains ‘Was it a chance encounter?’


# # # # # # Cat is on BlogLovin’ too! Follow my blog with Bloglovin

WHO IS AUTHOR and ADVOCATE MARILYN L. DAVIS?

Marilyn is a Certified Addiction Recovery Empowerment Specialist who opened and ran an award-winning residential facility from 1990-2011, called North House.

She recently celebrated 32 years of abstinence-based recovery.

She is the author of Therapeutic Integrated Educational Recovery System and editor-in-chief at fromaddict2advocate.com and twodropsofink.com.

In 2008, Brenau University created the Marilyn Davis Community Service Learning Award, which honors individuals working in recovery and mental health. In 2010, Marilyn received the Liberty Bell award, given to non-judges and attorneys for contributions to the criminal justice system and communities.

Before reaching these milestones, she was a desperate woman on drugs, managing rock bands at night, pretending to be okay, but ultimately giving up on herself, losing her husband, children, family, and friends due to her addiction.

A chance encounter with a 74-year old Native American named Gray Hawk showed her that healing herself would include meetings, Steps, and providing a house of healing for other women.

You can connect with the author on social media and visit both here award-winning blogs…

Recovery Blog: https://fromaddict2advocate.com/about-marilyn-l-davis-editor-in-chief/

Literary Blog: https://twodropsofink.com/author/marilynldavis/

 Join Author’s Newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon, Link

Interview with Author – Marilyn L Davis – Book Goodies – https://bookgoodies.com/interview-with-author-marilyn-l-davis/