We are an America obsessed with self-seeking and self-perfection, driving a wellness industry that reaches more than 80 million people and fuels a market worth more than $650 billion dollars. An industry that promises to make you better, stronger, healthier, and whole and meets an ever-increasing demand among Americans to “feel good” and find meaning in a cruel and confusing world. But while wellness soars so does inequality, insecurity, and isolation. We don’t need more juice fasts and yoga fads–we need to detox from the ideologies of separation, supremacy and scarcity that are holding us back from our best selves.
In American Detox, Kerri Kelly—community organizer and wellness activist—sounds a wake-up call. The wellness that we are so relentlessly seeking is only possible when we embody a mutual responsibility that goes beyond self care towards collective wellbeing. Through powerful storytelling, critical analysis, and new/old wisdom, Kerri tackles America’s toxic culture rooted in perfectionism, white supremacy, and individualism and explores a new paradigm for personal and societal wellness that is radical, relational and resilient. Along the way, she offers tangible practices and strategies for how to detox from the culture of separation, supremacy, and scarcity and show up for the wellbeing of the whole. It is a timely book that disrupts the status quo and provokes radical responsibility, while also nourishing and sustaining our resistance and resilience. American Detox is a “personal reckoning meets citizen handbook” about waking up, reclaiming our wholeness and transforming our country from the inside-out.