The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Valentine’s Day
It was only one meal after all and what could go wrong? The answer was simple. Me.
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Posts Tagged: addiction
A Letter to Eric
What follows is a love letter to my twenty-six-year-old brother Eric, written shortly after he overdosed on heroin. He survived.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Veronica’s Teeth
“…people like us made our own destruction. We suicide-bombed our own lives.”
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The Rumpus Interview with Brian Lindstrom
We talk to filmmaker Brian Lindstrom about his latest project, Alien Boy, the creative process behind documentary filmmaking, and his personal and artistic relationship with his wife, Cheryl Strayed.
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Albums of our Lives: Rufus Wainwright’s Poses
If I had written a list of pros and cons, I might have seen how moving to Austin from Seattle with a boyfriend who had just kicked heroin, and with stripping as my only job prospect, was not a recipe for success.
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Colt 1911: A Partial Timeline
“Eli. The gun is in my bedroom. There are bullets in there, too. I don’t need to worry about you guys, do I?”
...moreFrom Alcoholic to Diet Cokehead
In an interview with addiction website The Fix, reprinted at Salon, memoirist and poet Mary Karr discusses getting clean, flouting rules, and how sobriety shaped her relationship with David Foster Wallace.
...moreYou’re present when you’re not drinking a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day.
The Thinking Man’s Filter
Smoking again sounds like a good idea. I quit one November – twelve dry months following five years of intense puffing. The break was insightful, curative even, which was why I thought it might be time to resume the habit.
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The Sweet Smell of Excess
Al-Anon sucked. If I hadn’t been too broke for therapy, I’d never have taken a friend’s advice to attend those awful meetings. They were worse than the AA meetings I’d been to over the years in support of my string of alcoholic boyfriends—three, if you’re keeping count.
...moreShould We All Commit Facebook Suicide?
“But somewhere in that transition from a social site meant to deepen interpersonal relationships to a self promotional, commercial tool, Facebook lost its appeal.
“The various facets of my life merged into a web of connectivity where I could no longer clearly create distinct relationships with friends, foes, and fast food — either because I can’t figure out how or because Facebook is preventing me outright.
...moreNo Wi-Fi: A Very Short Q&A with Alan from Borderlands Cafe
A couple weeks back, I was in a bad way. I’d recently joined Twitter, was always on Facebook, and checked my email (and I don’t exaggerate) about 75 times a day. I couldn’t stand it, but I also couldn’t stop. I spent more than half my waking hours on a screen.
...moreOn the Couch
The protagonist of this novel about addiction, therapy, and recovery, confronts many of the same issues as its author.
...moreNovelist disappears into illness, addiction
Kaye Gibbons, author of the 1987 debut best-seller Ellen Foster and several subsequent novels, is the subject of an Associated Press profile published in several newspapers and Sunday book sections over the weekend. The article traces her downfall from “vivacious” best-selling author to her 2008 arrest for forging hydrocodone prescriptions to her disappearance into mental illness.
...moreBeyond the Pleasure Principle: One Woman’s Reading History
When I started reading as a child, it was an immoderate, late-night indulgence of sweaty palmed, pupil-dilating gluttony. Books were a drug, and civilized society was the pusher. And I got really really high.
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