I think the controversy is over how he presented his story as a personal memoir and now can't back up his supposed truths with documentation.

I don't think anyone is questioning that he was an addict, it's just that if your going to write non-fiction you better be able back up the facts.

There is a genre of literature called creative non-fiction which would have been better suited. It's a hybrid of literature and non-fiction which is exactly what he wrote.

Powerful personal stories sell better as memoirs though, so I'm sure that's why he marketed it that way.

He won't lose out. If anything, this will make the curious who would not have read it otherwise, run out and buy it.

It's the future of his writing that is in jeopardy now.