Recovering Roundup
A reminder that Quitted, my new podcast with Emily McDowell, drops at midnight E.T. on Wednesdays (so it’s available first thing Thursday). The last two weeks have been Elizabeth Gilbert talking about quitting social media and sex and love and drinking and musing that perhaps the point of our entire life boils down to one moment where we hold someone’s ladder. Tomorrow, Em and I clumsily make our way through an episode called The thing about endings.
Next week I’ll be sending my first podcast for this newsletter, an interview I did with Dr. Carl Fisher, author of The Urge, instead of this roundup so I can take a few days off while traveling. (The podcast is a bit of a test to see if you like it/if anyone even listens to it. I loved recording it. Carl is a sweet, smart human; his book is truly masterful, and we had so much fun talking about addiction, as one does.)
Onto the goods.
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Link Party, Week of March 6, 2022
Another cause of depression is named
An op-ed about how the highlight of her career induced a complete breakdown and now she’s taking it easy and that feels familiar
This 👏👏👏
Witches are finally apologized to
Another shitty thing alcohol does to your body
This study on the effects of Covid on drinking was fascinating and tracks. Folks who had the highest AUDIT scores pre-pandemic actually decreased their drinking; those that increased did so in response to isolation, loneliness, depression, anxiety.
On involuntary treatment; a complex read that I don’t know how to feel about
Zero-proof Guinness and alcoholic protein shakes
I appreciate Alex Olhonsky’s newsletter Deep Fix; this is one of my favorite pieces on “high-functioning” but most of his stuff is thought provoking
“White people love calling other people white people”; indeed
I love Suleika’s 100-day projects
A pretty horrifying read on being mis-diagnosed (for five years) as Bipolar II instead of what it really was: Endometriosis
Bev is a new fun, egalitarian alcohol made by nice feminists and good dudes
This piece on a different kind of self-care which reminded me of this excellent podcast by Sah on the same topic that I can’t recommend enough
An explainer on the different types of meditation for recovery
An essay on compulsory perfectionism and what we really love about people: “I thank you for your mess, for getting to adore yours makes it possible for me to adore my own.”
An article written by a person you absolutely do not want as your sponsor; I know it’s a fucked up article but also it made me laugh because all I heard was this Ric person yelling at me
On the internet being built to tell an only-bad-things narrative
Being single and smart is bad for your career if you’re a woman
Inflation might be the key to more equality; this article was fascinating and yes I bought his book which is legitimately boring and painful (so many graphs) but still somehow fascinating and hopeful
Typical bullshit
“What the Opioid Crisis Took From People In Pain” or your weekly installment of Maia Szalavitz
On womanism over feminism: “If women in power behave like men do, that is not a defeat of the patriarchy. That’s just patriarchy with women in it.”
I’m reading Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen (a brilliant book everyone should read), which makes an article like this on a woman’s libido a completely different experience
This week I gave to the Transgender Law Center and the Center for Reproductive rights; here’s a resource for organizations supported trans kids in Texas. I’ll share from time to time what organizations I support.
Six Things I Loved This Week
On Sunday within minutes of each other, Anne Helen Peterson (of Culture Study) and Haley Nahman (of Maybe Baby) both published essays about how living through the lens of our own 2D reflection—and optimizing for how we photograph or appear on Zoom or Insta or FaceTime or whatever—is changing us. AHP wrote about Zoom dysmorphia, and Haley wrote about filters, facial symmetry, and TikTok inspired plastic surgery (Haley also created this voice note about the same topic which I listened to yesterday). There’s a lot packed into both of these pieces and even more in Haley’s voice note; you could pull apart a lot and I did; but what really stuck with me is how little we are able to see our own beauty. Yesterday my childhood best friend sent me a photo of myself at 15; I remember when I originally saw that picture I hated how I looked (especially next to her), chin all jutting out, frizzy hair. But yesterday, 30 years later, I see something completely different, because I’m not looking at myself, I’m looking at someone else: a way older version of me. And she’s so lovely! I don’t notice her chin or her hair being frizzy or anything I picked apart back then. The point I’m trying to make is that we are often such unreliable judges of our own beauty, our 2D kind, our 3D kind; I spent yesterday walking around pretending I’m looking back at this version of me from my death bed—the same version I’m making hmmpph noises at in the mirror and shoving into too tight pants because pasta and bread and pastry—from that angle, through the eyes of a distant stranger who has enough objectivity to see what’s actually there: loveliness.
Yesterday Melissa Febos released her new craft book, Body Work, which I haven’t read but have purchased and plan to read. Her email announcement resurfaced an essay she wrote a few months ago about chronic pain and how she treats her body as a horse she rides instead of understanding she is the horse; which is all too familiar. It’s called The Horse is Me and I’ve shared it here before but it’s worth resurfacing for you, too.
This op-ed in the Chicago Sun Times by the DA Kim Foxx (prosecutor) in the case of Jussie Smollett (“Smollett was indicted, tried and convicted by a kangaroo prosecution in a matter of months. Meanwhile, the families of more than 50 Black women murdered in Chicago over the last 20 years await justice.”); this explainer by Patrisse Cullors. Indya Moore, who if you don’t know is one of the stars of Pose, transgender (she/they), Black; spoke up in support of Jussie calling out the terrifying precedent of this kind of trial and conviction on Instagram, got a ton of shit (I mean, a ton), and came back with one of the most beautiful explainers on why we need to love and care for each other and stop making exceptions for “not this one, not that one.” As Cullors said in the comments to that post, “We live in an economy of punishment. We need an economy of care.” This all has my heart.
Speaking of our economy of punishment: This incredible piece in The Atlantic by Sarah Hepola about saying the things she’s afraid to write about which I was nodding along with until she talked about sympathy for sexual predators and lol, that’s where my “not this one, not that one” REALLY kicks in. It’s an uncomfortable read and I think worth it. Sarah is also the author of the brilliant addiction memoir, Blackout.
Late last year, I went to an independent theater in Saugerties to watch a production put on by Upstate Films and the Woodstock Film Festival on the Corona virus. The documentary, The First Wave (available to stream on Hulu), was something a friend suggested and I agreed to mostly because I wanted to have what we’d been through processed back to me; to have that 30,000 foot view of this time while I’m still in it. I bought a drink and a little popcorn and those things sat on my lap the whole movie while I sat transfixed; I used my mask to wipe my near-constant tears. At the end, some of the folks who were filmed along with the director went on stage; one of them, Dr. Nathalie Douge, a fucking gem of a human and the main physician filmed, told us she’d quit working at Long Island Jewish, the hospital where the filming takes place. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, or the film; she’s on an upcoming episode of Quitted. A lot of people I’ve talked to about The First Wave don’t feel ready to see it; they just want it done and over, which I more than understand. But the thing is, we’ve been through something unprecedented, tragic, ongoing, relentless; trauma collects and sits until it’s paid attention to, dealt with. I think for those of you who didn’t lose someone (an estimated 8 million Americans lost someone), this can be an important way to integrate what we’ve been through. I know watching it changed me forever.
My friend Dr. Ellen Vora’s book, The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response came out yesterday; my review of it is linked below and here is what I said in my blurb: “The most comprehensive book in print on anxiety: what it is, it’s myriad causes, the ways in which it affects us, and how we can practically use, manage and transcend it. The Anatomy of Anxiety is like The Body Keeps the Score for anxiety. Everyone needs this book.”
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This! - “To be even blunter: the term high-functioning addict describes sick, addicted people who are still capable of producing capitalistic value.” Oof, this one got me. Holy crap, Alex does not mince words and I love it!
On the topic of excellent podcasts - the episode you did with Sah D’Simone (Ep. 42) is my favorite podcast episode ever