This is a very good article from the Boston Globe (h/t Maia Szalavitz, whom you should follow if this sort of thing interests you):Shortly after 1 a.m. on March 27, Susan Knade awoke to the sound of her cellphone ringing. It was her 21-year-old daughter, Caroline, calling. She was crying. Please, Caroline said. Please, come pick me up.Nine hours before, the woman running the halfway house had told Susan that Caroline could stay so long as she passed a drug test after the weekend. But … [Read more...]
“The End of Hitting Rock Bottom” and My Actual Most-Unpopular Opinion
December 9, 2015 by
My Top 10 Young Adult & Middle-Grade Novels About Drugs and Addiction
November 18, 2015 by
at The Fix: The YA addiction novel has become its own mini-industry. Which ones offer insight instead of hawking clichés? Below you'll find the best addiction-related YA and middle-grade fiction I could find. more--and a couple notes. That Alaya Dawn Johnson joint is like the most DC thing I've ever read, it was glorious. I wrote earlier about the book and movie of The Spectacular Now.I just realized that I left off Because of Winn-Dixie literally by mistake! It really should have ranked … [Read more...]
In the Basement of the Doll Hospital: Short movie reviews, mostly women in horror
November 10, 2015 by
I continue to believe that since November is the month when Catholics especially remember our dead, I get to watch lots of horror flicks. DON'T JUDGE MY SPIRITUALITY.Also, I couldn't help but notice that the first four of these movies include a scene with a woman peeing. They're all doing slightly different things with it, but is Ladies Pee Too the signature of '10s indie horror? If so, can we get a different signature?Contracted: A new-fledged lesbian with a history of drug addiction … [Read more...]
“Fragile Unions Like the One That Conceived Me”: Matthew Loftus
October 28, 2015 by
on the way two recovering alcoholics' troubled marriage is still bearing fruit, decades after they almost split up: I was six months old, and my mother was ready to leave. My dad had been remarking for some time that he did not want to be married anymore, that it just wasn’t working out for him. My mother had tired of saying that that was fine.They couldn’t communicate much beyond that, though she did know how to make things dramatic. Lacking funds for a suitcase, she piled our belongings in … [Read more...]
“Amends,” My Novel About Reality-TV Rehab, Is Available in Paperback
August 17, 2015 by
now! A month in rehab would be stressful enough without a television audience. When the ramshackle cast checks in for "Amends," a new reality series about alcoholism and recovery, they don't know if they've been cast as villains or potential redemption arcs. Over the course of the show they learn what God sees when he shuts his eyes, how to appreciate the comforts of hallucination, and what it looks like when a wolf fights a troll. A conservative journalist woos a homeless Ethiopian visionary. … [Read more...]
“Love Is a Losing Game”: I review an Amy Winehouse documentary
July 15, 2015 by
for AmCon: It’s impossible to describe Amy Winehouse’s voice. Crackly, crimson, fractured and sultry: That’s just the scratchy surface. “Amy,” the new documentary from director Asif Kapadia, delves into the jazz chanteuse’s troubled life and early death, but never forgets to show us Winehouse’s talent and craft—and her gentleness.“Amy” plays like a defense brief. There are villains: Winehouse’s father Mitchell, her husband Blake, and the paparazzi. The movie takes Winehouse’s own narrative a … [Read more...]
Are You Drinking With Me, Jesus?: Benedict Options and Recovery Communities
May 29, 2015 by
This is part of a series on the "Benedict Option." Part one, part two, part three.I mentioned that I was struck by the number of people at Libresco's "Benedict Option" discussion who were in recovery themselves, or who had some close contact with recovery communities. I don't want to make too much of this, really--I know more people are in recovery than I realize, and Leah's thing was pretty much the opposite of a representative sample. But if we're wildly speculating on what people with … [Read more...]
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