Interview with a 52-Year-Old Sober Person: Ana Marie Cox
An alcoholic who is in the throes of addiction believes
Jowita Bydlowska • Drunk Mom: A Memoir
addiction is a disconnection from yourself, and a disconnection from yourself is born of something present that you (think) you can’t face.
Brianna Wiest • 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think
“The goal here is to create a situation you no longer have to escape, or a life you don’t have to numb. The achievement of sobriety is not the point; it’s a by-product of the work. The work is the point. Addiction is the hook that gets you in the door, and quitting is the catalyst to heal deeper wounds.”
Holly Whitaker • Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol
What properly indicates addiction is not what someone is doing, but their way of doing it, and in particular their desire to avoid any encounter with certain sides of themselves. We are addicts whenever we develop a manic reliance on something, anything, to keep our darker and more unsettling feelings at bay.
Alain De Botton • The School of Life: An Emotional Education
“Isolation,” Holly Whitaker writes in her book Quit Like a Woman, is “an almost inextricable and necessary part of recovery”—it is “what saves you, what breathes you, [and] what makes your bones.”
Cornelia Powers • My Relationship With Drinking Ended As The World Shut Down
Self-hate and Addiction Self-hate coping behaviors make you feel better and make you feel worse at the same time. All major addictions are like this. Self-hate is the ultimate addiction.