Junkies and drunks frequently end up putting a megaphone to their own pratfalls in the form of memoir because they need to believe that all of the time they spent with their lips wrapped around glass, whether is was a bottle of vodka or a crack pipe, actually meant something. That impulse suggests that I don’t regret the past — it brought me here to this nice, happy place — but I’d also like to squeeze something more from it. ~ David Carr
My good friend Anna Z sent me this story from The New York Times by David Carr that is actually an adaption from his book, The Night of the Gun. I usually stay away from the drunk and druggy memoirs because like I always say, the people and the places may change but we all work off the same playbook. Mr. Carr however adds an interesting twist by not only relating his story, but by going back as a professional journalist and separating the past world as he remembered it from the reality that occurred backed by eyewitness accounts, documents, and personal interviews.
And then he ponders the questions we all ask: Why? Why we tell our tale different from the way it happened, why it matters in the present, and why we tell it all. Mr. Carr does not just sew up his past into a suit of sober clothes to proudly display, instead he takes it off one piece at a time to expose the person he really was.
Click "Read more" to continue...
Mr. Carr is a brilliant storyteller so I suggest you read a chapter yourself here. The rest of the website has a variety of info and videos that are of great interest. Unfortunately even though the site is visually stimulating it is not very user friendly. Click on the pictures to open up the links and then click off to the side to go back.
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The most refreshing part of the story was it's frankness. I've found a tendency to minimize the negativity of my actions during my drinking days. Especially after a few years of recovery. The drunkalog isn't the only thing to talk about when you are asked to tell your story. Recent events are taller. They represent progress. Progress is hope. It's not pleasant to recall just what a shite you really were.
It's nice to see someone revisit the old playing field without selective recall.
The best line of the whole excerpt was "Unless a person is willing to be terminally, frantically earnest, all hope is lost."
That sums up all the successful stories that I've heard in recovery.
one of the requisite skills for recovery, but my favorite line in the story was the one where he was referring to him and his wife battling over the chldren's custody. Both addicts, both with a sordid past, and he called it in retrospect a "tallest midget contest". Not exactly PC, but the point is well made.
thanks for the link - good stuff
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