"These confessionals about alcohol dependence share a common theme: explaining in vivid detail the author’s battle with the bottle, and the ways in which society has duped us into thinking that alcohol is a cool way to deal with life’s ups and downs, rather than a toxic substance with addictive properties, which increases anxiety and depressive symptoms over time.... I listened to the audio version of 'This Naked Mind' in December.... After spending some time with Quit Lit, I understood the appeal. There’s probably a reason that only 7.7 percent of people with serious drinking problems seek help — it can be humiliating to label yourself as an alcoholic. When a witty, wise woman is telling you about her journey, it seems like one you want to be on...."
Writes Lesley Alderman in "'Drinking until I passed out': Quit Lit targets women’s sobriety A new genre of storytelling focuses on alcohol dependence and is helping some women curtail drinking or quit altogether" (WaPo).
I've never noticed the term "Quit Lit" before. Googling, I see it's a very popular term! Here's Goodreads's collection of Quit Lit.
Posts
29 comments:
I had the unfortunate experience last winter to date an alcoholic woman. She used to call me up late at night and slur her words. It was horrible. The worst of it was that she told me these obvious and fantastic lies. I couldn't believe a word she said.
She broke into my iPad and read my text messages. She then broke up with me. Disaster averted!
Temperance movement.
"...a cool way to deal with life’s ups and downs, rather than a toxic substance with addictive properties, which increases anxiety and depressive symptoms over time."
It is so refreshing to hear people writing about their struggle with marijuana...oh wait.
(A preview of future self-help books due to hit the shelves in 20 years)
"society has duped us into thinking that alcohol is a cool way to deal with life’s ups and downs"
Ah, yes, society did it.
So, anything new in the Quit Lit, besides the universal, predictable, always-the-same after-the-fact "narratives"?
Quit Lit, or the literature of abstemiousness.
Literature.
Female drunks may be able to avoid spiritous liquors, but pomposity steamrollers them every time.
What would you call an anonymous meeting of Quit Lit followers seeking sobriety support?
Q-Anon?
alcohol is a cool way to deal with life’s ups and downs
I find that a nice Chardonnay pairs nicely life's daily indignities.
Speaking as a person whose family has experienced the turmult and turmoil of alcoholism, I know the path(s) to recover can be long and rough, but necessary. Whether AA, meditation, rehab or anything else, whatever results in success, however measured, gets my vote, including Quit Lit.
remember!
according to MOST alcoholics..
a) they are NOT alcoholics
b) they have NO Problem with their drinking
c) they only drink.. 'because they like the taste'
d) they could stop, whenever they wanted to.. It's Just that, they don't Want to
e) it's Not like they get DTs or cravings or anything.. It's just that, they drink EVERY Night
speaking as someone who fit a-e; you'd be SURPRISED what things would look like if you tried be sober
Dave Begley said...
I had the unfortunate experience last winter to date an alcoholic woman.
i KEEP telling you Dave, leave those Carter Lake chix alone!
Quit like an Egyptian.
I quit drinking cold turkey in 1984 when my then 8 yr old son asked what was the deal with booze.
I realized I needed to parent by example. Except for one serious slip in 1991,I've not tasted alcohol since.
I was a social drinker and would have denied that I had a problem.
Quitting alcohol is one of the 5-10 best things I've done in my life.
John Henry
For some reason these battles with Demon Rum always interest me, although I'm not sure why getting blasted constantly is such a joyful experience. I'm a big fan of Charles Bukowski, and the man was told in his late 30s that more drinking would kill him, and he got out of the Hospital and kept on drinking anyway! Lived to be 70, but still...
The tenacity to which some people will hang on to the bottle, no matter what can be amazing. Personally, I'd quit right after the first night in the "drunk tank" or DUI. But then I'm not the addictive type.
I once was asked during an interview if I had only addictions, and I said "I have only one, an addiction to hard work and the success of the project". I thought they would laugh at the obvious insincerity, but instead it got scribbled down.
I was offered the job.
Society has duped us into thinking that abortion is a cool way to deal with day, week, month after "burdens".
One step forward, two steps backward.
Having observed, not been part of, Gilbar left out:
f) Everyone I hang out with drinks the same way- we can't all be alcoholics.
Can't count how many times I've heard that as I'm ostracized as the oddball who doesn't drink.
I once rented a home from an alcoholic. I kept a bottle of gin in a cabinet and the level kept going down even though I didn't drink any of it. Must be hard to resist the temptation. Cigarettes are the same. I knew a woman who had used both heroin and tobacco, and she said it was more difficult to get off the tobacco.
I know I don't want to drink but how do I persuade people at an AA meeting that they ought to not drink because I could/cannot. I had that same helpless feeling trying to drag my sister, who died of alcoholism, to AA meetings. She looked at me in the eye and asked me, does it work? I said, I don't know. It was and still is my best answer.
It's like a part of me had to die and only I, the alcoholic could/can kill it. Continuously going to meeting is to reassure myself that I don't want to revive my drunk self. That's the one-day-at-a-time part.
That's what I see as the basic reason why only 7.7% of problem drinkers seek help. A lot can stop, for a while, but the majority who try to stop can't stay stopped. To those who can't embrace it, AA can seem like a celebration to denial. I get it.
Gospace said...
Having observed, not been part of, Gilbar left out:
f) Everyone I hang out with drinks the same way- we can't all be alcoholics.
OMG! i did leave that out!, and THAT is probably The Most Important One. Good catch Gospace
Plenty of people drink alone.. DAMN FEW started out that way.
About a year after i quit, i realized that i needed an ENTIRELY new group of 'friends.'
Lem FTA said...
She looked at me in the eye and asked me, does it work? I said, I don't know.
I'm sorry about your sister. Maybe this is the wrong place for this joke, but here goes anyway.
question: How Many Psychiatrists does it take, to change a light bulb??
answer: Only one; But it takes a Long Time.. And the light bulb has to WANT to change.
The Trouble with Addiction, is that you have to want to change.. Each and Every day
Individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value. What do you stand to lose?
There is no program that deserves criticism, or even worse, scorn, if it helps people to get control of their lives. It might have a name that sounds absurd or pompous, but if it works and helps people, how can I be anything but all for it?
Great! People who are getting sober and are living sober need cultural touchstones, too!
I have to delete all posts by “unknown” so please try again using a real name.
.
gilbar is so close
I can stop drinking, Ive done it hundreds of times.
Don't get cravings or withdraw...But they drink EVERY night. Look, if you dont start in the morning its impossible to drink all day.
I'm okay, I just drink like everybody else. I always believed everybody on the golf coarse drank. Nope. Not even close
Lem FTA
I'm having a tough time piecing together what you trying to say.
AA works every time it is worked. No exceptions. People who grasp recovery in AA, and go back out, always, easily, identify which of the steps they stopped working. Oh, that assumes they come back in the door and want to
I know a hand full of AA members with serious recovery, still very active in AA, that have lost siblings, children, friends to alcoholism. AA is not something a recovering alcoholic can impart on anybody. AA provides support and direction, but the alcoholic has to be able to surrender and find the willingness to accept the program.
The biggest hurdle for those struggling, is failing to understand alcohol is not their problem.
.
Does "quitting like a woman" involve breaking like a little girl?
chuck writes, "I knew a woman who had used both heroin and tobacco, and she said it was more difficult to get off the tobacco."
Tobacco is a very successful parasite.
Because they seem utterly immobile and utterly oblivious to their surrounding we tend to think of plants as primitive and passive lifeforms thoroughly dominated by their fellow Eukaryotes, the Animalia, but that's a mistake arising from our ignorance.
To begin to understand tobacco and its relationship to its host, Homo sapiens, one must discover the fundamental fact of all the Plantae: What animals do with behaviors plants do with chemistry. Everything sweet, everything nourishing, everything addictive, with the exception of a handful of artificial compounds, was invented by plants primarily to influence the behavior of animals to the plants' benefit.
Somewhere along the long, torturous, and infinitely branching paths of evolution plants discovered their photosynthetic talents produced far too much chemical energy than their slow-motion lives could ever consume. Consequently, new uses for their manufactured carbohydrates arose. They evolved means to assemble immensely strong and resilient polymetric carbohydrates from the simple glucose radicals their chloroplasts, symbiotic bacteria, made from water and CO2 using solar radiation, which they use for structure the way other eukaryotes, animals and fungi, use proteins and mineralic crystals. Later, those same excess sugars and starches came to be the basis of mutual exchange relationships between plants and the animals who helped transport and propagate them. Plants also evolved chemical countermeasures against organisms, primarily animals and fungi, whose life processes were detrimental to the specific plant rather than helpful. Many of these typically complex compounds proved useful to the plant in more subtle ways to ensnare animals in more asymmetric exchange relationships. Tobacco just happens to enjoy one of the most pervasive and exploitative of these asymetric relationships.
When I was in college, we had "Free Speech Alley." One of the popular pastimes was to watch the itinerant preachers get up and talk about our need to find God, save our souls, etc. Quite a few of them were recovering from various forms of addition: alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, all the classic sins.
It felt like many of them were in a competition for the title of "biggest sinner before finding religion." They were trying so hard to outdo each other with the tales of their pre-reform depravity.
Post a Comment