When you’re at your lowest point, it’s easy to feel like there is no hope, like you are completely alone, like your life will never be full again. Rock bottom is such a common term in the world of recovery. And while everyone has a rock bottom, no one has the same one. When you’re… Continue reading 5 Things I Wish I Knew When I Hit Rock Bottom
Tag: Features
Setting Boundaries in Sobriety
Sobriety doesn’t come with a handbook. If it did, you’d have to be sober first to read it. People with addiction issues are not used to setting boundaries, especially when those boundaries involve behaviors we have reinforced for years. I spent years violating boundaries as a drunk. Particularly when it came to relationships. Piss me… Continue reading Setting Boundaries in Sobriety
Kicking Heroin Cold Turkey Changed My Life
Nobody ever tells you how it feels, especially for the first time. This was the most pain and anguish I had ever experienced in my life, and I had given it my best shot, but there was really no point in going on. There were three of us. Eric was dashing and handsome, with eyes… Continue reading Kicking Heroin Cold Turkey Changed My Life
Joan Jett's Bad Reputation
“I’ve been hurt,” says Jett. “I’ve had my head split open by a beer bottle, a rib cracked by getting a battery thrown at me—this big metal rig thing….just because I was a girl, I’d get spit on.” Bad Reputation is a loving tribute to legendary musician and feminist icon Joan Jett. The trailblazer turned… Continue reading Joan Jett's Bad Reputation
My Experience in a 12-Step Cult
As part of my therapy I had to cut contact with my family and tell my professors I was recovering from sexual abuse. It was excruciating, but I wanted to do the “hard work” of recovery. “If you leave here, you will be on the street.” From her red upholstered chair, my psychotherapist Marlene launched… Continue reading My Experience in a 12-Step Cult
The Eternal Holiday of the Alcoholic
When you drink constantly, you become numb, slipping down into a sub-life, a waking coma. You become a chaotic ghost that exists almost at one step removed from everything else. The following is an excerpt from Jolly Lad – The Expanded North American Edition, published this month by MIT Press and available here. After I… Continue reading The Eternal Holiday of the Alcoholic
God Hates Pikachu and He Also Killed My Daddy
My higher power doesn’t want me sticking a needle in my arm. For me today, it’s as simple as that. I didn’t want to unpack this story so soon. My aim was to share my experience with getting and staying sober in a dry and witty way, do that for a while with you, maybe… Continue reading God Hates Pikachu and He Also Killed My Daddy
An Open Letter to Addiction Treatment Providers
There’s something wrong with addiction patients feeling the need to ask for medical advice from their communities because they don’t trust their providers. Maybe you’re a psychiatrist. Maybe you’re a dosing nurse at a methadone clinic. Maybe you’re an inpatient counselor. Maybe you work in an emergency department, or you’re an OBGYN; maybe you don’t… Continue reading An Open Letter to Addiction Treatment Providers
When the Obsession Isn’t Lifted
Before, when someone with 20 years would say “it’s still a day at a time,” I couldn’t really hear them. I do now. I was a typical low-bottom case. I was drunk most days, and a car wreck, an arrest, and a liver enzyme problem couldn’t pry me from my favorite thing to do. What… Continue reading When the Obsession Isn’t Lifted
Bringing Harm Reduction to Haywood County
The man in the camouflage shirt who emerges from the cabin is drawn and thin with circles under his eyes. He tenses at my presence, especially once Jeremy tells him I am there to write an article. It is a cloudy evening and mosquitoes patrol in full force as Nancy Bauman and I pick our… Continue reading Bringing Harm Reduction to Haywood County