FROM THE JUNGLE BACK TO MYSELF
Discover the identity that has been waiting within you.
A powerful story about identity, freedom, purpose, pain, gratitude, and the choice to become who you were meant to be.
by DAVID LEON GOLDEN
ABOUT DAVID LEON GOLDEN
Cracked Open is more than the story of what David survived. It is the story of what he discovered on the other side of survival: that the identity we have lived with does not have to be the identity we continue to embody.
Through pain, struggle, forgiveness, gratitude, self-reflection, and transformation, David explores the process of choosing a new way of being, and learning to live from that identity.
HARDCOVER
Keep Cracked Open close in a bound edition made for the shelf, the nightstand, and the pages you return to.
PAPERBACK
A lighter physical edition for readers who want David’s story in their hands wherever the road takes them.
DIGITAL EDITION
Take David’s words with you in a digital edition you can open whenever you need to return to the story.
“While David openly shares his experience with crack cocaine and the difficult seasons of his life, Cracked Open reaches beyond addiction. At its heart is a deeper question:
Who are you choosing to be?
The book explores what happens when we stop allowing our past, our circumstances, our mistakes, or the labels placed upon us to define who we are. It invites readers to recognize their own
capacity to choose, change, heal, and become.”
the book
IDENTITY & CHOICE
What if the person you have been identified as is not the person you are required to remain? Cracked Open challenges readers to examine the stories they have accepted about themselves and consider the possibility of writing a new one.
Your Story Is Still Being Written
You are not finished.
Your past may explain part of your story, but it does not have to determine the character you embody next. The power to choose your identity, your thoughts, your actions, and your direction begins within you.
READER TESTIMONIALS
“Cracked Open is more than the story of what David survived. It is the story of what he discovered on the other side of survival: that the identity we have lived with does not have to be the identity we continue to embody.”
Reader
Reader
“The Central Question: What if the person you have been identified as is not the person you are required to remain? Cracked Open challenges readers to examine the stories they have accepted about themselves and consider the possibility of writing a new one.”
Reader
AFTER CRACKED OPEN
David keeps writing about what comes after the old identity falls away: the choices, questions, and inner work of learning to live free.
Occasional notes. No inbox clutter.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Yes. David writes from his own experience with more than three decades in and out of crack addiction, along with the shame, choices, faith questions, relationships, and inner conflict that came with it. The book is his lived story, not a fictionalized recovery narrative.
For David, the phrase means more than being broken by addiction. He came to see that the pain, darkness, and years in what he calls “the jungle” stripped away false identities and forced him to confront what was still alive underneath them.
No. Crack addiction is David’s story, but the book reaches beyond one substance or one kind of struggle. He writes about bondage, identity, forgiveness, fear, faith, gratitude, and the work of facing whatever has been allowed to define your life.
No. David does not present a clinical recovery program, and he does not claim to have everyone’s answers. His spirituality grows out of lived experience, questioning, scripture, and his belief that the way back to oneself is inward rather than through another imposed label.
