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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.

An abandoned building covered with moss and a sign that reads END OF THE WORLD
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  • Voices on Addiction

Voices on Addiction: Inheritance

  • Christy Tending
  • July 25, 2023
We simply have not treated climate change as the intergenerational curse that it is. We have left it, again and again, for the next generation. We have chosen comfort and familiarity and numbness over a reckoning that might have spared our children.
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Voices on Addiction: Anchor Point

  • Kelly Coughlin
  • June 27, 2023
At first, sobriety feels at once like a death of a best friend, loss of comfort, and a beloved version of one’s self. On some level, it is exactly these things . . .
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Voices On Addiction: Speaking Ill of the Dead

  • Juliane Bergmann
  • May 26, 2023
I have always felt stuck in the quicksand of Wanting-Things-To-Be-Different.
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Voices on Addiction: Want to Believe

  • Shelley Mann Hite
  • April 28, 2023
Tell the Rapture Shelf story!
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Voices on Addiction: Washed Clean

  • Brad Wetzler
  • March 17, 2023
That’s when I noticed John the Baptist standing chest-high in the middle of the narrow, easy-moving river.
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Voices on Addiction: The Churn

  • L.L. Kirchner
  • February 24, 2023
Nothing mattered but the churn.
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From the Archives: Voices on Addiction: None of This Is Bullshit

  • Sheree L. Greer
  • January 27, 2023
I was fine. No one and nothing could hurt me.
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Baseball diamond
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Voices on Addiction: There is No Escape

  • Alyson Shelton
  • December 30, 2022
. . .this house is not the right place for children either and yet, here you are day after day.
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Voices on Addiction: Whatever Fatal Thing

  • Marian Palaia
  • December 1, 2022
D— was dreamy in the precise manner of Neil Young circa 1974. Long, dark hair; green eyes; great butt; nice smile. He was sweet, funny, just tall enough. Wore a…
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Voices On Addiction: The Hypnotist

  • Gretchen VanWormer
  • October 28, 2022
Dad quit smoking via a hypnotist shortly before my sister Margaret was born. When I was eight or nine, he liked telling me the story of the hypnosis, sitting together on the green sofa in the living room, parallelograms of sunlight on the brown carpet.
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Voices on Addiction: Rome, Risotto, and My Alcoholism

  • Grayson Kelly
  • September 23, 2022
This could be a way out.
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Voices On Addiction: SALVE CAPUT

  • Kirie Pedersen
  • August 26, 2022
I wished I knew a word for the green of moss right when it starts up freshly in spring. I would lie down on it and roll around. I would pray to it. I would sing its name.
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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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