Recovering Roundup
This endless month came to a close yesterday, but not before wreaking its jokey, “we are not through with you” wrath. On Friday night I got worst case scenario news; on Sunday one of my closest people drove their car through a fitness center (they are, and everyone else is okay, okay). Last night on our Quitted podcast weekly call, I told the team “if my house was on fire right this minute, I’d probably still sit here and do this meeting and be like, oh, that background noise is just an inferno; I’m fine, we’re fine, first item on the agenda is social media assets.” What I mean by all this is, I’ve either meditated myself into complete non-reaction (nope/maybe), or there’s just a part of me—the twitchy, “sky is falling” center—that gave up, completely. Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel unhealthy. It’s not apathy, resignation, disassociation. It's more like actually living that parable where no matter what happens, the correct response is always ‘oh, that’s interesting.’ As in, I don’t know if the worst news is the worst news anymore; or if the best news is actually the best news, and my body is really, really tired of sussing all that out and reacting to things on face value. Maybe enlightenment isn’t just about sitting under a tree until revelation; maybe enlightenment is sometimes just being so fucking exhausted of the chaos that is this life (at this point in time especially), and your reactions to it; maybe the enlightened masters mostly gave up? IDK.
Anyway! It’s February! It’s Tuesday! It’s a link party! As usual, for those of you overwhelmed by too many links and endless open tabs, there’s the Bitesize Top 5 at the end.
Lastly: this Thursday the first-ish episode of Quitted drops; a longer, twenty-minute trailer about what Em and I are quitting in the process of creating Quitted (perfectionism and stress and saying sorry all the time, for example). The first full episode launches February 10th, and we have a ridiculous line-up of folks and shows and I am as excited as a person with SAD in the middle of winter can be.
Link Party Tuesday, Week of January 31st 2022
Is Wellness Culture Making Us Worse Friends? “Wellness accounts across the internet are encouraging people to cut ties with friends that don’t give off “good vibes only.”
Saoirse Ronan is playing the lead in the movie adaptation of The Outrun, a just out of rehab memoir that I hadn’t even heard of, but bought immediately.
More ruinous alcohol industry news.
More bullshit.
An article that tells us how to use alcohol in our homes to kill a virus, and one that tells us to drink it for the same effect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A music video about alcohol addiction.
“A woman’s smile—or rather, lack-there-of—filled half the country with joy.”
A study that explores the link between SUD and autism.
Irina Gonzalez in her new newsletter, Pandemic Mama, asks if we are all experiencing situational depression.
Martha Stewart, of Martha Stewart Wine Co., beefs with Ina Garten over pandemic drinking.
United didn’t give me a refund for a canceled flight but they are serving mocktails
1 in 5 middle-aged Australian women are binge drinking
An NYT op-ed by favorite Maia Szalavitz on decriminalizing drugs
The laugh I needed this week (via Roxane Gay)…
Non-alcoholic drinks were not for me when I first got sober; they were actually completely triggering: this article explores that nuance
Color Me Sober: A new documentary explores the need to create POC-specific mutual aid
Alcohol addiction is a crisis; an op-ed by the head of a pharmaceutical company that unsurprisingly believes we just need to find the right drug? It’s a good article, still.
How our conception of time impacts addiction
For some people, getting sober was their Apocalypse
Five Things I Loved
This Resource Roundup: Harm Reduction Tools for Self- and Community Caret co-curated by Resident Advisor and Ecology of Care is the most comprehensive guide I’ve ever found. It’s an inclusive guide to self-care, community care, crisis suport, de-escalation tools, mutual aid, drug testing and other harm reduction tools, queer and BIPOC specific support, and more. Save it, share it.
It might be time to stop blaming everything on the pandemic.
How hustle culture got America addicted to work. Over the summer I read the book Work by anthropologist James Suzman (hard recommend), who reminds us that John Maynard Keynes predicted in the 1930s that by now we’d be down to a 15 hour work week (due to technological advances!); instead, we’re working more than we did at the time of his prophesy. This article digs into why we are working more than ever, and how the pandemic changed all that by giving some of us enough space to ask ourselves how tf are we spending our lives. This article by Aki Ito is incredible; this week we’re interviewing her on Quitted.
“The movie Love, Actually should be called Go To Al-Anon Now, Actually.” (Scroll to the bottom; read: Even if Your Blood is Clean).
I’m thrilled about this: Ask Ana Marie about Sobriety: a new (anti-)advice column in The Cut
Holly thanks for including the article on undiagnosed autism and SUD. It’s pleasing that some work is being done and especially that they are coming at it from this new angle. My history with substances was definitely kicked off by my undiagnosed autism. It was a long and strange journey to diagnosis at age 46 but better late than never. I so often wonder how many women have been on this journey. Autism
presents quite differently for women and we are commonly mis -diagnosed as Bi-Polar or personality disordered. Such a huge topic for research! ….
"maybe the enlightened masters mostly gave up?" {{{{{snort coffee out my nose!}}}}