Shooting Up by Jonathan Tepper is a memoir about growing up in the 80’s in a drug slum in Madrid. The story revolves around Jonathan’s father’s calling to try and help those living with drug addiction and HIV Aids. I was intrigued from the start. 

I lived in a household where god talked back.

Shooting Up tells the story of an unconventional family’s dedication to god, and their care and compassion for addicts. A cohort that is commonly shunned by society, but who became Jonathan’s friends. 

Theology, history and poetry books were the only things we brought with us to Spain. Forget Betty Crocker cake mixes, American candy and other things that useless missionaries bring.

Tepper’s parents were Protestant missionaries. His father found religion during a college LSD trip. When he was high, God told him to dedicate his life to Him, and he did. And as a consequence so did his entire family. 

Some American families travel on vacation to Yosemite to learn how Sequoias can grow to three hundred feet or how geysers spew boiling water. Our vacations were visits to drug rehabs to learn if junkies would hurl when they went cold turkey.

The Tepper parents and four blonde sons walked the slums handing out brochures to the local addicts. They also welcomed them into their home to help them. The family set up a progressive drug rehabilitation centre in the San Blas neighbourhood during a time when heroin was widespread, and HIV AIDS was on the rise. 

The most beautiful story anyone can tell is the story of your own life. What do you want to tell with your life? Do you want to live a life of fear and shame, or get off drugs and come with us and life a life of love and hope?

The story is told through the lens of a young boy. This perspective makes it even more powerful. Jonathan is trying to make sense of his parents’ devotion and the chaotic world around him that is just his normal life. In its telling, the memoir explores faith, love, loss, hope and resilience.

My father quoted from John 15:13: ‘Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ The verse was nice, but the way I saw it, from that day we knew Raúl would take a knife for us. That was the highest thing you could say about a friend in San Blas.

Thanks to Jonathan for the advance copy. Tepper is a man I knew nothing about, but after looking him up I’m even more impressed. His upbringing meant he was largely home schooled, but he went on to became a Rhodes Scholar and author of several finance books. Shooting Up is an extraordinary and moving memoir and a very unique coming of age story. Highly recommended.