The Work Is Not Recovery

There’s something about sober living and sober thinking, about facing long afternoons without the numbing distraction of anesthesia, that disabuses you of the belief in externals, shows you that strength and hope come not from circumstances or the acquisition of things but from the simple accumulation of active experience, from gritting the teeth a

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Addiction is in all of us. This argument has come to matter a great deal to me. The reason I care about it is that when I truly felt this notion in my bones, reading accounts of addiction and recovery from across history, it was profoundly reassuring and comforting. As I write at more length in the book, I developed a sense of fellowship with all t... See more

The goal is not accumulating the longest list of days of no drinking, the goal is to reclaim a potentially mythical, long-lost treasure. We must leave what we have become accustomed to and strike out in search of something we may not find. It’s the commitment to that goal that is heroic, the willingness to face fears with abandon, to stand at the t... See more