Sects, Drugs & Rock n Roll
About
At 71 years young, Debra Cohen has written the rare memoir that bridges three worlds most people never see together: the underground New Wave music scene, the raw reality of trauma and healing, and the unexpected, often miraculous, spiritual encounters that shaped her into the woman she is today.
Her memoir, Sects, Drugs, & Rock n Roll, is not another “sex, drugs, and backstage stories” book. It’s a spiritually awake, musically driven narrative that follows a girl who grew up singing Beatles and Olivia Newton-John in a lavender bedroom, survived emotional and sexual trauma, performed in legendary Boston clubs, rode motorcycles through Nashville’s blues scene, found God in unexpected places—from Cursillo retreats to Egyptian monasteries—and experienced real physical healings, from Meniere’s disease to a punctured eardrum.
What makes Debra different is simple:
She didn’t just live through the eras she’s writing about—
she transformed through them.
Where most memoirs stop at “what happened,” Debra goes on to reveal why it mattered, who it made her, and how others can heal, forgive, and reclaim their joy—at any age.
Her voice is equal parts musician, mystic, survivor, and teacher.
And in a culture obsessed with reinvention, Debra’s story proves that reinvention isn’t just possible—it’s sacred.