Sects, Drugs, & Rock n Roll is a fearless, pulse-pounding memoir of a woman who chased music, love, and God across decadesādiscovering that every detour, heartbreak, and miracle was shaping her into who she was meant to become. Born in 1954, Debra J. Cohen came of age with the rise of television, the explosion of New Wave music, and a culture spinning in every direction. From belting songs in her lavender childhood bedroom to performing in Bostonās underground clubs, Debra lived for the stageāuntil life pushed her into deeper, stranger territories: spiritual awakenings, toxic relationships, miraculous healings, and the long road toward forgiving the people who wounded her most.
But this isn't just a story about survival. Itās about a woman who refused to stop searchingāsearching for her voice, her God, her purpose, and the love she withheld from herself for too long.
With humor, grit, and unflinching honesty, Debra invites readers into a journey that proves itās never too late to heal, to rise, and to rewrite your own story.
If youāve ever lost yourselfāand dared to find your way backāthis book was written for you.
Sects, Drugs, & Rock n Roll is a fearless, pulse-pounding memoir of a woman who chased music, love, and God across decadesādiscovering that every detour, heartbreak, and miracle was shaping her into who she was meant to become. Born in 1954, Debra J. Cohen came of age with the rise of television, the explosion of New Wave music, and a culture spinning in every direction. From belting songs in her lavender childhood bedroom to performing in Bostonās underground clubs, Debra lived for the stageāuntil life pushed her into deeper, stranger territories: spiritual awakenings, toxic relationships, miraculous healings, and the long road toward forgiving the people who wounded her most.
But this isn't just a story about survival. Itās about a woman who refused to stop searchingāsearching for her voice, her God, her purpose, and the love she withheld from herself for too long.
With humor, grit, and unflinching honesty, Debra invites readers into a journey that proves itās never too late to heal, to rise, and to rewrite your own story.
If youāve ever lost yourselfāand dared to find your way backāthis book was written for you.
It was a very happy and sad day on November 22, 1963. My life as an 8-year old was about to be radically changed that day, just seven days before my ninth birthday. I was the oldest of three from a middle class home in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. It was a time when my mother played music on her Magnavox stereo all throughout the day. Among her favorites were Doris Day, Johnnie Mathis, Connie Francis, and of course, Elvis Presley. I loved to listen to the upbeat songs that she played and became a fan of the more obscure recordings of Martin Denny and Claude DeBussy. Claire de Lune captivated my imagination as a child in the most wondrous of ways; that tune took me to a magical place in my mind where everything was pleasing and deLightful.
But then, on that sullen day in November, I got the news, oh boy: my idol, JFK, was assassinated. It broke my childhood heart. I can still see little John-John standing on the curb of a sidewalk saluting his father as the limo drove by. I cried unfathomable tears and then tucked them away, far away somewhere in my mind, but I had a crutch to escape my grief.
It was the day that the album With the Beatles was released in the UK on November 22, 1963. I first saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show. My sisters and I loved to visit Nana and Grandpaās house every weekend because we were each given our own bottle of tonic with a bag of chips to sit in front of their black and white TV. It was better than the television that we had at home. This one didnāt have tin foil on the tips of the rabbit ears; the reception was so much better and larger than life.
And then that joyful moment that I was waiting for finally arrived in the midst of a grieving nation as Americans mourned the loss of their President: Ed Sullivan announced the news in his funny New York accent. I thought that he said that it was going to be a really good shoe, but of course, I knew that he meant show, and then he said, āLadies and gentlemen ā¦ The Beatles!ā And out they came on stage, the āFab Fourā, and the screaming began. The teenage girls in the audience suddenly went audibly wild over these guys. The TV camera panned the audience and you could see a tsunami of tweens and teens yelling and crying and sobbing while The Beatles sang their love songs to us. Each one of us imagined that they were singing to us. Spectators could still hear the music above the millions of teenagers roaring across the nation, but at a concert, it was another matter. The collective screams made it nearly impossible to hear the band singing at all. This counterculture revolution was a landmark event, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers and shattering television viewership records. Sullivanās introduction of these Liverpool lads offered a beacon of hope to a nation of sorrows by bringing The Beatles to a massive American audience, marking the beginning of āBeatlemaniaā in the United States. I was instantly caught up in a crush with these British singers, hooked for life by their drop-dead gorgeous looks and their crooning harmonies. They opened up their set with, āAll My Lovinā:
Close your eyes and Iāll kiss you
Tomorrow, Iāll miss you
Remember Iāll always be true
And then while Iām away
Iāll write home every day
And Iāll send all my lovinā to you
Iāll pretend that Iām kissing
The lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true
And then while Iām away
Iāll write home every day
And Iāll send all my lovinā to you
All my lovinā (Ooh), I will send to you
All my lovinā (Ooh), darlinā, Iāll be true
Close your eyes and Iāll kiss you
Tomorrow, Iāll miss you
Remember Iāll always be true
And then while Iām away
Iāll write home every day
And Iāll send all my lovinā to you
All my lovinā (Ooh), I will send to you
All my lovinā (Ooh), darlinā, Iāll be true, huh
All my lovinā (Ooh), huh, all my lovinā, ooh
All my lovinā (Ooh), huh, I will send to you
And in the twinkling of an eye, I was transformed from a cartoon kid into a love-hungry soul for Beatlesā lyrics and those Liverpool lads; I couldnāt get enough of them. I was bewitched with Beatlemania to the umpteenth degree! Paul McCartneyās puppy dog eyes melted my heart. I was madly in love with him even though I had no idea what love really was. I had such a bad case of loving him that I wanted him to wait for me to marry him when I came of age. Every time he sang, āTill There Was You,ā I imagined that someday he would finally kiss me:
There were bells on a hill
But I never heard them ringing
No, I never heard them at all
āTil there was you
There were birds in the sky
But I never saw them winging
No, I never saw them at all
āTil there was you
Then there was music and wonderful roses
They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
Of dawn and dew
There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
āTil there was you
Then there was music and wonderful roses
They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows
Of dawn and dew
There was love all around
But I never heard it singing
No, I never heard it at all
āTil there was you
āTil there was you
I didnāt know at that time that Sir Paul did not write those lyrics for me; they were actually penned by Meredith Willson. Iām not sure if it would have mattered to me anyway. I sang these words to Paul a thousand times while looking into his dreamy brown eyes on the television screen.
I suffered my first heartbreak when he got married to Linda Eastman. With every ounce of my teenage love, I had wanted him to wait for me, and so did millions of other teenage girls across America. You had to have been there to believe this phenomenon. It was as if the whole world had become addicted to this concept of adoring love. Beatlemania became some sort of a pandemic, affecting teenagers across the nation, but not everyone saw this as a good thing. When Art Linkletter, the TV personality who turned drug expert after his daughterās acid-inspired death, testified before a congressional commission on drug abuse in late 1969, he warned parents of the specific evils menacing society at that time: Timothy Leary, The Beatles, and rock and roll radio.
āTim Leary,ā Linkletter said, ābecause he and others who speak highly of LSD [are] among the murderers of my daughter.ā He continued, āThe Beatles, because they are a terrible, terrible example for youthā¦ and Top 40 radio because half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with chemicals and light shows at discotheques.ā
He may have been speaking a foretelling message of truth to American parents. When I heard about Artās comments as a love-struck teen, I shrugged them off as poppycock - words from an old fart. But in my later teens, I became one of those wayward children as I entered the land of the hippies.
Debra Cohen's Sects, Drugs and Rock N Roll is a raw, riveting memoir of survival, reinvention, and the relentless pursuit of meaning. From the innocence of suburban Bostin in the 1960s to the raw energy of Nashville's blues bars and the spiritual stillness of Jerusalem, Cohen chronicles a life shaped by longing; for love, belonging, and meaning.
The book opens with a poignant portrait of childhood, where Beatlemania becomes a refuse amid family fractures and emotional neglect. What follows is a candid journey through adolescence, addiction, and heartbreak, culminating in a harrowing LSD experience that becomes a turning point toward faith. Cohen's honesty is striking; she does not romanticize her past but examines it with clarity and compassion, weaving cultural history with psychological insight.
One of the memoir's most compelling threads is its exploration of neurodivergence. Cohen reframes traits once dismissed as flaws - sensitivity, intensity, and creative obsession - as signs of a mind wired differently, offering readers a lens of empathy and understanding. Her prose is rich with sensory detail: the scent of autumn leaves, the shimmer of lavender fields, and the haunting cry of loons on Golden Pond. These moments elevate the narrative beyond recollection into meditation, making the reader feel the texture of her transformation.
While the book covers vast terrain - rock-and-roll dreams, spiritual awakenings, cross-cultural marriage, and healing - it never loses its heartbeat: the enduring power of music and grace to restore what life has broken. At times sprawling, the story mirrors the complexity of a life lived fully, with all its detours and revelations.
I recommend this book for all readers who love memoirs that blend cultural history, spirituality, and psychological depth. Fans of Patti Smith's Just Kids or Glennon Doyle's Untamed will find Cohen's story unforgettable; a testament to resilience and the song that never stops playing within.