Smoking has bedeviled me for 25 years. After years of success slaying one behavioral and mental health demon after another (binge eating, alcohol, and depression), smoking is the one that keeps coming back. Why is this addiction so persistent and pernicious? I still don’t fully understand the allure, and why I lose the power to… Continue reading Smoking Gun
Kristin Hersh released Hips and Makers in 1994. Her band, Throwing Muses, was my favorite band, and I idolized her. I can still picture the record store chalkboard where her impending solo release was announced. In the days before Google, we got our news from chalkboards in record stores. I bought the CD the day… Continue reading The Ghost of 1994
Addiction is a shortcut to feelings of success. Drugs and alcohol are addictive because success feels good. But instead of working hard, achieving milestones, and getting the intrinsic satisfaction of a job well-done, alcohol just slips in those effervescent good feelings without having to do a lick of work. It’s a cheat to make your… Continue reading Why I Stopped Digging
So I was a working alcoholic for a long time before I got sober. In my 20s, I did lots of sketchy things – I was stoned at work every day at all my jobs (that was actually well into my 30s), I drank on the job occasionally at one place, I passed out pills… Continue reading Working for the Weekend
In one of my support groups, there are some brilliant and wise people having moments of pure genius. In the best meeting I’ve ever been to, a shining star said something that moved us all. To paraphrase, she said that we, as recovering addicts and alcoholics, have qualities that the post-COVID world will desperately need.… Continue reading Why the Post-COVID World Needs Addicts
It’s everyone’s favorite – flow. Video gamers know it. People who are super-into their craft know it. Athletes know it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did the research and thinking that defined the condition, and described it as a state that “occur[s] if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to… Continue reading Addiction and Flow
I mentioned that I go to support groups for some of my addictions and problems. Obviously the “Anonymous” franchise – Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Al-Anon, Anonymity Anonymous, the list goes on – is the best-known network of support groups, and it’s a great one. There is much to appreciate about their approach (and some stuff… Continue reading A Group Can Sense Us
