Falling Up From the Bottom

At age 22, Samantha de la Vega was caught up in a universe far away from the rarified world of the Dakota Apartments on Central Park West where she had grown up. She was stuck in a maze of addiction – strung out on heroin and cocaine in the Mission district of San Francisco when she was arrested for drugs. Having survived the brutality of the streets, and sitting in a cell with time to think, she revived a part of herself that had been buried in a fog that was finally lifting. “There had been one too many nights in seedy rooms, spun out of my mind with someone horrible chattering aimlessly at me under a light bulb glowing yellow. I finally had enough space from it to start to get my bearings.”She fled to Mexico City where she began to find herself in the unlikely grind of one of the most dangerous ghettos in Mexico, and eventually worked her way back to a more familiar and safe world, piecing together parts of her life in her own unique and new way.Her winding and often miraculous travels took her far from life in the Dakota, where she had lived as a child with her stage actress grandmother – just outside of the orbit of her public relations magnate grandfatherJohn Wiley Hill, whose agency was among the inspirations for the HBO Series Mad Men. There, as a child of the 1970s and 1980s, de la Vega had walked the same mahogany and marble corridors as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who lived directly across the hall from her apartment, and whom she ran into periodically as a girl. “Falling Up From the Bottom” documents a long slow fall through the back corridors of modern life, tracing her unusual life from Puerto Vallarta in the 1960’s, to a terrible fall from a window in the Dakota, through her subsequent spiral of addiction. There is a bloody accident in the middle of the Mexican desert and dozens of schemes and narrow escapes along the way. De la Vega walks a fine line in dealing with such heavy issues by removing any judgment, regret, or condemnation about the worlds and circumstances she depicts. The choices she makes are always hers and hers alone. It’s a rare glimpse into the downward trajectory of addiction and subsequent survival told in an honest and instructive way that shows how de la Vega not only survived but ultimately built a life full of adventure and success beyond her wildest dreams. Today, she serves as a true inspiration for those around her and the book documents how she overcame her tragedies and became who she is today.From running ultramarathons in the mountains, to a successful corporate career, to Jiu Jitsu and fight sports, she goes for it with a contagious excitement and rare vitality that makes you want to jump into the fray with her.“My central message is no matter how dark it is – and no matter how much the world around you seems to be telling you it’s not going to be okay – only you can decide what the truth is. Only you can find the beauty, love, and appreciation for life and humanity in the hardest circumstances. Life is in the moments of joy; even during the hardships.”Told with suspense and de la Vega’s unsparing eye for detail, “Falling up from the Bottom” comes to life with heart-felt humor, warmth and inspiration for anyone who feels lost in today’s crazy world. De la Vega not only captures the devastation and loneliness of addiction, but she catapults the reader to her new normal, where she is a successful Fortune 500 executive – moving forward into a new and rewarding life against all odds.“I always wanted to tell my story to give voice to what happened; to call it what was, and to express my experience of it as a validation to my childhood self that I was here and my life mattered to me.In the end, she was finally making the connection that mattered – the one with herself. And it mattered. All of it. Read more