A Million Little Pieces is a semi-fictionalmemoir by James Frey. It tells the story of a 23-year-old alcoholic and drug abuser and how he copes with rehabilitation in a Twelve steps-oriented treatment center. While initially promoted as a memoir, it was later discovered that many of the events described in the book never happened.

A badly tattered James awakens on an airplane to Chicago, with no recollection of his injuries or of how he ended up on the plane. He is met by his parents at the airport, who take him to a rehabilitation clinic. We find out that James is 23 years old, and has been an alcoholic for ten years, and a crack addict for three. He is also wanted by the police in three different states on several charges.

As he checks into the rehab clinic, he is forced to quit his substance abuse, a transition that we find out later probably saves his life, but is also an incredibly agonizing event. As part of this, he is forced to undergo a series of painful root canals, without any anesthesia because of possible negative reactions to the drugs. He copes with the pain by squeezing tennis balls until his nails crack (when challenged on this incident, specifically, during his second Oprah appearance, Frey said that it may have been "more than one" root canal procedure and may or may not have included Novocaine, as he remembers it).

James Christopher Frey (born September 12, 1969) is an American writer. His books A Million Little Pieces (2003) and My Friend Leonard (2005), as well as Bright Shiny Morning (2008), were bestsellers. He was the subject of a scandal when investigators discovered that major elements of A Million Little Pieces, a purportedly autobiographical account of the author's struggle with addiction, were untrue.

Frey graduated from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1992. Before Frey began his writing career, he held several jobs in the Chicago area while studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. Frey then moved to Los Angeles and found work as a screenwriter, director, and producer. In the spring of 1996, Frey started writing A Million Little Pieces, originally presented as a memoir of his experiences during his treatment for alcohol and drug addiction at a rehabilitation center in Minnesota.

Frey also wrote the screenplays to the films Kissing a Fool and Sugar: The Fall of the West. Both were produced in 1998, the latter of which he directed as well.

Wayne Walter Dyer (born May 10, 1940) is an American self-help author and motivational speaker.

Dyer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Melvin Lyle (deceased) and Hazel Irene Dyer and spent much of his adolescence in an orphanage on the east side of Detroit. After graduation from Denby High School Dyer served in the United States Navy from 1958 to 1962. He received his D.Ed. degree in counseling from Wayne State University.^{[citation needed]}

Dyer worked as a high school guidance counselor in Detroit and as a professor of counselor education at St. John's University in New York City. He pursued an academic career, published in journals and established a private therapy practice. His lectures at St. John's, which focused on positive thinking and motivational speaking techniques, attracted many students. A literary agent persuaded Dyer to document his theories in his first book called Your Erroneous Zones. Although initial sales were thin, Dyer quit his teaching job and began a publicity tour of the United States of America, doggedly pursuing bookstore appearances and media interviews ("out of the back of his station wagon", according to Michael Korda, making the best-seller lists "before book publishers even noticed what was happening"), which eventually led to national television talk show appearances including Merv Griffin, The Tonight Show, and Phil Donahue.