A Million Little Pieces; Post Three

What are the major struggles and conflicts that your characters encounter? How do the characters face the conflicts?

The main character in A Million Little Pieces, James Frey encounters many conflicts and struggles througout this memoir. James, as mentioned in an earlier post, is an alcoholic and drug addict. He began drinking at age seven and has not been sober for six years. As you may already notice, James’ major struggle in this novel is alcoholism and drug addiction. At the beginning of the novel James is put in a treatment facility to overcome his illness. So at the start his main problem is trying to live without drinking and doing drugs. His four days of being sober bring us to the middle of the story where we learn about his second problem, wanting to commit suicide.

For many hours James contemplates leaving treatment and in the end he decides it’s time to die. He becomes extremely frustrated with his life, to the point where he has planned to leave the facility, “I step out from beneath the cover of the door and I start walking” (104). In this case, we see that James has decided to face his conflicts by leaving the facility. The day before James leaves the center he finds out that, “The first is that you are lucky to be alive. The second is that if you ever have another drink or use any type of hard drug again, there is a good chance that you will die” (92). This is how James plans to escape his struggles of alcoholism and drug addiction.