Just by Looking at Him: A Novel

Looking at the list, I knew why Jonas wanted me to do it. It was important for me to look at all the ugliness that had lived—no, still lived—inside of me. Because only when you’re honest about the ugly can it start to become beautiful.

A lot of people use alcohol to lose their inhibitions, but for me it was the opposite. I drank to calm down and basically become catatonic. To be sober at a party reminded me that this is who I truly was: a Dennis the Menace weirdo who liked trolling people and acting kooky.

Gus walked away. I continued to watch him, wondering what he was feeling, who he was going to call first to say that we had run into each other. Gus and I worked until we didn’t. When you get into a relationship, you both implicitly sign this contract that says “I’m going to be this person for you and you’re going to be this person for me and that’

Your conscious mind makes a decision not to drink and then sends the memo to your subconscious, which is where years of messaging and brainwashing lives, and your subconscious is like, “Wait, what? But drinking is amazing.

still not drinking. Three whole weeks. Can you believe? Instead, I just looked at Boomerangs on Instagram of people clinking glasses and photos people posted of martinis with some “funny” caption justifying their drinking, and I thought about how our society worships at the altar of booze and how it’s more socially acceptable to drink than not to d

The book was called This Naked Mind, by Annie Grace, and after finishing it, I realized my brain’s been wearing, like, seven layers of clothing. Here are my main takeaways. The past few years, I’ve tried to scale back my drinking, to no success, and each time I betray myself, I feel more powerless and alcohol’s grip tightens. But the reason why qui

I feel lucky to love exercise. Finally, an addiction that enhances my life. When I run, I stop returning my brain’s texts and I feel fully present in my body:

The problem here is the inherent belief that alcohol is EVERYTHING and you’d be making a giant sacrifice in giving it up. You wouldn’t be. In fact, you’d be gaining so much and losing nothing. It was life-changing to fully know the insidious slippery-slope nature of addiction, that after doing something for so long, you’re more inclined to get addi

I’m realizing that so much of my existence was focused on outrunning what seemed to be a preordained fate of loneliness.