If you’re having trouble with relapsing or don’t want to work AA’s program I seriously recommend picking this up. There is so much practical advice about changing your thought patterns, setting goals, visualizing.
Better than both my therapists combined.
I’m really surprised it doesn’t get mentioned more.
I identified that I romanticize alcohol too much and subconsciously haven’t seen myself as a sober person. I also suffer greatly from negative thought patterns.
Every time my mind wanders to booze I think about this book. And I’ve read basically all the books including AA.
Oh god, romanticising drinking, addiction and psychic complexity was basically how I navigated through social groups and potential idols, literary heros, admired musicians all through my youth and young adulthood. To recognise this pattern as harmful, or even just problematic took a lot and only happened because it had utterly run out and not left me with anything practicable, it ran straight against a wall. To admit how deep it went and how big an influence it was on the invention of myself is still such a huge task. And a scary one too! I still don’t know if I’ve grown much from then. Do youse all think this might be changing in the young folk today?
Hahaha you’re so right, not a Kanye lover here either! They are surely not going to learn self-irony or humility…
Well the Stones got away with their demons and addictions, how am I supposed to feel about that?! (Apart from jealous)
I have read a lot of rock star memoirs about their addictions, they suffered like us for sure and lost a lot in the process. For many of them, they ruined their relationships with family, friends, bandmates etc. no different than us…they just did it with name recognition and more money…unless they spent all their $ like David Crosby did before he got sent to jail. His memoir is quite the cautionary tale.
You’re right again. Part of me still thinks if you can hold it together and be productive with all that, you kinda beat the system. I know it’s wrong to think like that. But I’m new here.
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, Warren Zevon (not a sobriety memoir, more a cautionary tale)
The Dirt, Motley Crue
Long Time Gone, David Crosby (probably my 'favorite ’ in the genre, what an ass and what a mess)
It’s Only Rock n Roll, Jo Woods memoir about life with Ron
Dirty Rocker Boys, Bobbie Brown
Wonderful Tonight, Pattie Boyd
The Road Through Wonderland, Dawn Schiller (look it up…intense!! She is a survivor!!)
Beauty Disrupted, Carrie Otis
Thing of Beauty, Story of Gia by Stephen Fried
High on Arrival by Mackenzie Philips
I know what you mean! Impossibly as it would have seemed to me a year or even a few months ago, instead of all that I loved before being lost, all the beauty and complexity and edge and relevance of artworks concerned with well, the ego as you say, and it’s demons and problems, it’s more like sobriety turns them upside down and oddly finally the right side up. As if under this new light sth very distinctively still shines out and true about them, just sth unexpected, and seen by a new eye of mine. Which is immensely reassuring. O.O But really this is an entirely experiential thing for me yet, my mind and belief system clearly haven’t caught up with this wonder yet!
I’m not in AA (yet) but strangely enough the thought of service to others, helping, has independently emerged for me too and seems to have sth to do with ethics and aesthetics alike, just as “before” I’d always believed too that art does provide service and is an ethical thing in some way, as well as being art. Maybe I’m projecting too much into what you’re saying, if so I apologise.
Powerful stuff. Been feeling this very acutely. Some feeling of coming into the right, things losing their double-ness without becoming dull, it being easier to say and do and belief the same rather than always feeling like there’s something crooked and stubborn somewhere, or that no accordance is to be had at all anywhere in the world.
But I’m extremely vary of ideology and this seems too good to be true at times? How can I ensure this isn’t just a pleasurable feeling I’ll end up abusing for egoistical means or ambitions? I do feel like I’m becoming a better person, but how do I know?
This is really reassuring to read. I seem to go off music when I stop using (my record is almost 7 days recently), but I always feel so angry and sad that I can’t enjoy music when I’m sober and it makes me miserable because music was always a huge part of my life growing up, and I didn’t ever need any alcohol or substances to feel it deeply back then. I long to be able to experience something new and perhaps even more positive from it whilst remaining sober. I find silence really enjoyable sometimes too, but I need to be around others that enjoy silence, else I feel lonely and sad once more. I’m so heavily medicated for my mental health and pain conditions, that my doc helps to clear the fog that comes with all the meds, so I feel awake and creative and can write for hours whilst listening to music. They day I can figure out a way to do all of that whilst remaining sober, I feel like I would never end up back on Day one again. I romanticise my DOC because it does give me something positive, feeling awake, and able to write and enjoy music (all stuff I used to do pre addictions). It also has significant negative effects on other aspects of my life and I just don’t want to have to keep using to feel how I want to feel. Sorry, I’ve interrupted your convo, but it was nice to read a positive experience in regards to enjoying music in a new way, and I liked the words you used to describe that so I had to respond
Thanks again for the reply, Rain! I don’t know what I expected, but the circularity of these arguments still takes me aback when directly confronted with them. I’m a very logical and critical person, just coming into touch with the idea that being honest to myself, relying on a morality that just happens to be somewhere inside me, can be legitimate ways to gain more insight, lead a better, more knowledgeable, more meaningful life, not necessarily less effective than sth logically arrived at. And I share what you’re saying too, from experience. Just still finding it hard to subscribe to intellectually. Thanks!
Hi Tyler, thanks for your reply! Music has been a tricky one for me. There certainly was a (long) time when I was already drinking to keep it together amidst the intensity of my mood swings and depressions, when i would seek out music and immerse myself in it absolutely, and write aswell. It would intensify and structure my moods and lend aesthetic direction and expression to things I only felt or thought. That was wonderful. But in recent years my depression has got so much the better of me and alcohol was used to mainly numb and normalise my state, and I’ve avoided music entirely when alone or sober, so to not awake my mind to the emotions I had to hide from, about the bad situation I was in. Romanticising both emotionally intense music and the DOC that always always went along with it seemed to lead down a path of where I’d eventually be shut off from my emotions and not creative either anymore. I think it’s the romanticising that must go. Hence this whole discussion, cos I also don’t know how really to go about this. But as Rain666 has communicated so well, there are no exceptions in addiction really, and there are other values to look out for in art than what we associated with it at first. Which is what’s so great and rich about art! (I don’t know if my point came out clearly but have to go)
I totally relate to the romanticising, this illusion the addiction pulls over my eyes telling me that doc is going to make me feel great and everything will be okay, despite the horrifying awareness I have of my nose and face falling apart beneath the surface and getting into more and more debt. I’m literally paying an obscene amount of money, to lose the ability to breathe through my nose! I sound like a cartoon character, I already never had any confidence, and now I have a negative amount! I’ve suffered with mental health issues for as long as I can remember. Which is what really terrifies me about the 12-step programs, because you literally have to face everything you’ve been trying to escape from all these years. I wonder if I’m strong enough to fight my demons for the rest of my life. Music can really help emphasize emotions/feelings, it can also distract. Driving can give me bad anxiety, but music really helps, and enables me to enjoy some journeys. I’m not sure if I’m making any sense at all, I’m just writing my thoughts really. It’s interesting to be given something to think about. Thank you
I’m sorry to hear about your low confidence. I can really sympathise. This makes everything so difficult.
Yeah I totally get this about the 12 steps being intimidating because of all the soul searching you have to do. While it makes total sense to me, that to be able to turn your life around you have to take yourself apart and put yourself back together a different way, it is a terribly difficult thing to consider! I’m in a psychoanalysis independently anyway, which is mega intense and in-depth, and wonder how I could take on both, a 12 step aswell. Would they be conflicting? with each other in any way? Would be interesting to know if anyone else has experience with this kind of situation…?
They are surely not going to learn self-irony or humility…
(I don’t know if my point came out clearly but have to go)