Impossible Hope
The system does not protect or serve those we call “aliens.”
...more
Posts Tagged: rehab
Voices on Addiction: Happy Birthday to Me
As long as I could feel, I was going to get high.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Fault Lines
After, they said I was like a saint. Death changes people’s memory.
...more
Voices on Addiction: All the Ways to Save Your Life
But we can make choices if we want to live. I believe that.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Flight Patterns
There was no map, no compass. Just me, the needle, and heroin.
...more
Follow Your Nose: A Conversation with Daniel Gumbiner
Daniel Gumbiner discusses his debut novel, THE BOATBUILDER.
...more
Holding Herself Up: Amy Dresner’s My Fair Junkie
It’s hard to build a life, no matter who you are, Dresner suggests.
...more
Discomfort, Desire, and Drugs: Talking with Ben Gwin
Ben Gwin discusses his debut novel, Clean Time: The True Story of Ronald Regan Middleton, the book’s unique structure, and writing satire.
...more
A Magpie for the Lord
What would it be like to not be us? We were trying to figure out so much about the world then, and this is something we could never get to the bottom of.
...more
Voices on Addiction: The Honeybee
She never stopped, a bee buzzing from flower to flower to flower, collecting all the sweetness she could.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Shame Is a Treble Hook
Shame is a treble hook that tells me that 1) I not only fail but am a failure, that 2) I not only damage people but I am damaged, and that 3) I not only lie but I am a lie.
...more
Back to the Places I’ve Left
“No one knows how to handle it,” I tell her, but I can see she’s angry and I’m speaking into the wind.
...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: My Souls Are Out A-Wandering
What is marriage but another form of colonization? A renaming? A power taken, a power taken away?
...more
Voices on Addiction: Dynamite
The world is a merry-go-round, a sawed-off shotgun, a ticker tape. There’s no struggle now. There’s only darkness, breathlessness, exit—
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Mohr
Joshua Mohr discusses his memoir Sirens, writing for his daughter, and why he values art that trusts its audience.
...more
Voices on Addiction: A Bad Night
Trying to protect him from himself is like trying to protect atmosphere from weather.
...more
Voices on Addiction: The Only Thing That Has to Change Is Everything
The word rehab is short for rehabilitate, which means to restore to a former capacity. Like houses, I remember thinking. Demo the kitchen. Tear down the walls.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Mother’s Day
I will always feel a little broken. Intellectually, I know her disease is “not my fault.” But I’m her mother. I will always partially feel the blame.
...more
The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #1: Are We Amused Yet?
Here is something I’ve always believed: Just knowing I am an artist, asserting that identity, is more important than what I produce. It is a victory in itself.
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
It’s July, and the summer issues of literary magazines are rolling off both the physical and cyber presses, including Virginia Quarterly Review, which this week shared a story from its summer print issue online. In “Dixon” by Bret Anthony Johnston, author of the bestselling novel Remember Me Like This and the award-winning collection Corpus Christi, […]
...more
Voices on Addiction: Too Much Hope
I wanted more time with him, but I didn’t want to hope. Too much hope will mess you up.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Jamie Brickhouse
Jamie Brickhouse discusses Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother, a memoir that chronicles his intimate, near-fatal journey through alcoholism, and living HIV positive.
...more
An Actress Recommends Five Classic Films to Her Child
Surprise is only one of many aspects of human behavior. There are dozens. Maybe even a hundred.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: A Brief History of a Bad Heart
She studies you, still panting with an energy that consumes the room, and whispers in a reedy voice: “They say you fucked up your heart.”
...more
Sound Takes: Something More Than Free
“My day will come if it takes a lifetime,” sings Isbell, with the sunny assuredness to make us believe him.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Remembering Molly
Ten years later I still wondered about those aviator glasses and whether The Breakfast Club could restore us.
...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Last Chance out of Jonestown
An addict struggles to forgive himself for the violence he sowed.
...moreLong Way Home
Joshua Mohr tackles time, addiction, and invisible dogs over at Lit Hub: I’d love to tell you what happened next with the Rattler, love to tell you some adventure I went on with him. But the truth is I can’t tell you anything else. One minute I was sitting at Vesuvio nursing a Fernet shot, […]
...more
He Doesn’t Wanna Be Here
It wasn’t until my mom came over after work and told me my brother had confessed to her that he’d been using heroin for two years and needed help that I knew I’d seen him with a needle in his arm.
...more
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.
...more