Voices on Addiction: Washed Clean
That’s when I noticed John the Baptist standing chest-high in the middle of the narrow, easy-moving river.
...moreBecome a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!That’s when I noticed John the Baptist standing chest-high in the middle of the narrow, easy-moving river.
...moreNothing mattered but the churn.
...moreI was fine. No one and nothing could hurt me.
...moreEssays are all about reflection, and we thought we’d kick off 2023 with a look at the most-read pieces of last year. It can sometimes feel like hours (years) of hard work disappear into the maw of our short attention spans, and these lists serve as important reminders of the work. — The Eds. *** #1 […]
...moreDad 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.
...moreThis could be a way out.
...moreThe hardwired need, the uncontrollable craving people described, manifested for me primarily with my bulimia. Alcohol played second string in the quartet.
...moreThe unspoken family sentiment: If everyone worked hard and the bills were paid, that was all that mattered. There was no room for emotions.
...moreWe don’t talk, for instance, about wine at dinner parties, or wine at house warmings, or boxed wine on the front stoop, or beers at the game, or mommy juice in sippy cups, about open bars or happy hours, champagne toasts or cakes drenched in rum, about all the gatherings—the celebrations—where we drink water, […]
...moreYou’ll look back and you’ll think the scars seem almost invisible, like maybe they’ll be gone one day. But then you’ll realize you’re just looking at the smaller ones, and yes, the bigger one is still right there.
...moreI am sick with grief, triggered by my mother’s death, in turn triggered by Chardonnay.
...moreThen the road less traveled by diverged in a wood and took him in the night.
...moreWe both can disappear in our own ways, can’t we?
...moreFinding joy in the now, even as death and difficulty mark the days, is possible, a choice, and a practice.
...moreThis was a reconnaissance mission. My intention was to save her, not alienate her.
...more“Was it vodka?” Mama said. Her voice had cracks in it. Why ask? She knew.
...moreJames Brown and Patrick O’Neil discuss WRITING YOUR WAY TO RECOVERY.
...moreTelevision babysat our family—our thirteen-channel set, reception via a rooftop antenna.
...moreI grieve my father’s disembodiment. It is my grief inheritance.
...moreIt hadn’t felt like teasing. It felt the way it always did these days—that I had disappointed her.
...moreLilly Dancyger discusses her debut memoir, NEGATIVE SPACE.
...moreThe toll I took on people I love can’t be measured. But I want to know.
...moreAddiction steals your integrity. Your freedom, too.
...moreFor years, decades even, my father tried to escape meth’s hold.
...moreShe introduced me to the ugly of religion and to the beauty of the world.
...moreI want to see myself as a whole person.
...moreI always thought I was too smart to be one of those girls.
...moreThere is no finality to this grief. Only a series of losses, compounded.
...moreErica C. Barnett discusses her debut memoir, QUITTER.
...moreThe thing we most had in common was that none of us wanted to be there.
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