Y98’s Paul Cook writes book on struggle with alcoholism
St. Louis broadcaster Paul Cook has written a self-help memoir, “Cooked in LA” about his struggle with alcoholism.
An afternoon voice on Y98FM and a reporter for CBS’ New 4 This Morning, Cook says he’s now a sober, happy 37-year-old father of two daughters. But for a few years after college he struggled with drugs and alcohol.
He doesn’t mince words. On the first page of the book’s galley, he writes: “Obviously I will be dead in a few minutes….It’s 1999 and I’ve been partying this year just like the Prince song instructs. I’m panicked, nauseated and embarrassed. This state is called the K-hole, an undesirable, drug-induced world of catatonia….”
Paul Cook obviously survived and he now talks to high school students about substance abuse. Look for the book to go on sale from Kunati Inc. in April. See the Y98 website: http://y98.com/pages/100077.php
This news is very odd to me. Every day we hear about political and financially cover-up. Just this weekend we learned that the biggest hero in baseball has possibly been covering up illegal drug use. And the #1 hero in all of world sports was caught using a destructive illegal drug 2 days ago. All of them instantly go into damage control mode which for me is insulting. So now a member of the local media, with everything to lose, comes out and talks about his experience with drugs and alcohol without first getting caught publically? It just seems weird. And I can’t think of a reason to do it other than trying to help someone, but nobody does that anymore. I applaud him and I will buy the book.
Wow, I don’t know how I missed this nice little blog entry. And Thanks, I think, Raymond.
I wrote the book for the reason you have given Raymond. I love both of my broadcasting jobs. But the book was not written to bring attention to those 2 careers, like some books are. COOKED in LA was written to bring attention to a story of substance abuse recovery and to prove that there is a way out. It’s sad to see so many lives cut short simply because they thought “no one could be like me.” That’s what I thought at one time.
I think it is an interesting book because not only are all of the emotions of alcoholism covered, but we also find a great amount of hilarity while out in Hollywood for that time period. Reading them now it’s hard to believe that all of these things actually happened. But that is the most important thing, unlike some memoirs, all of these things actually happened.
I hope you will give COOKED in LA a read.(http://COOKEDinLA.com)
Sincerely,
Paul Cook
Very good read … and very enlightening. I recommend this book. The part about disappointing Sean Penn is worth the cost of the book itself. Catchy title too.
I’m glad Mr. Cook has been able to get his life in order, and I hope he can continue to keep it there. He’s fun to watch on KMOV and I also applaud him.