Voices on Addiction: A Small, Dry Place
My earliest impressions of my father are like the negatives in a reel of over-exposed 35mm film, the kind of images that were returned from the photo lab with quality control stickers, marked “light damaged.”
Voices on Addiction
114 posts
Voices on Addiction is a column devoted to true personal narratives of addiction, curated by Kelly Thompson, and authored by the spectrum of individuals affected by this illness. Through these essays, we hope—in the words of Rebecca Solnit—to break the story by breaking the status quo of addiction: the shame, stigma, and hopelessness, and the lies and myths that surround it. Sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, adult children, extended family members, spouses, friends, employers or employees, boyfriends, girlfriends, neighbors, victims of crimes, and those who’ve committed crimes as addicts, and the personnel who often serve them, nurses, doctors, social workers, therapists, prison guards, police officers, policy makers and, of course, addicts themselves: Voices on Addiction features your stories. Because the story of addiction impacts us all. Submit to our column editor, Kelly Thompson here.
Voices on Addiction: The Shape of Memory
He smelled of faint traces of acetone and the lemon hand soap he always used. He smelled like home.
Voices on Addiction: What I Learned About Myself from Watching Intervention
At one point, I admired her. She acted how I wished I could.
Voices on Addiction: Gotta Light?
Was he going to show up and tell our parents? What would we say? Would we lie? Would Sarah cry again?
Voices on Addiction: Dodging Rocks
I was also told that Sophie’s first words as she was tackled by police and hit the cold, hard linoleum of the PO’s office were, “Tell Dad I’m sorry."
Voices on Addiction: Tender
Words can’t capture a personality like numbers can’t capture a person.
Voices on Addiction: Harm Reduction
If I could describe this point in my life in the simplest terms possible, I would say this: it was not sustainable.
Voices on Addiction: Badfish, Don’t Bother Me
Probably, then and there on the wraparound porch, I should have known to turn around, should have left it all to someone else—the missing key an omen. But I was always going to find it.
“Simply tell the story”: A VOA Mini-interview with Nikkya Hargrove
...family relationships can and do change, and those we feel “kin” to can also change.
Voices on Addiction: Second Chances
Had he, like me, been the only one left, doing the best he could, showing up for emergencies?
Voices on Addiction: Fifteen Places
She is refusing; she is refusing me. I am not a mother; I don’t feel like a mother.
Voices On Addiction: Incorrigible, A Love Story
I wanted to be good so my mother would love me. But I didn’t know how.