(Sound familiar? I’m too epicurian to do this. But I know lots of women who do do it.)

NYT: Starving Themselves, Cocktail in Hand

“There are women who are afraid to put a grape in their mouth but have no problem drinking a beer,” said Douglas Bunnell, the director of outpatient clinical services for the Renfrew Center, based in Philadelphia. …

Psychologists say that eating disorders, like other addictions, are often rooted in the need to numb emotional pain with substances or the rush provided by bingeing and purging. The disorders are often driven by childhood trauma like sexual abuse, neglect and other sources of mental anguish. …

… A growing number of researchers are examining the psychological and neurological links between eating disorders and substance abuse: Does eating a chocolate bar, or bingeing and purging, stimulate the same pleasure centers in the brain as drugs or alcohol?”

Read the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/fashion/02drunk.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin

“(A)n idea that is not very popular these days — at least not in the United States, is an almost collective yearning for complete happiness. That idea is this: A person can only become a fully formed human being, as opposed to a mere mind, through suffering and sorrow. This notion would seem quite strange, possibly even deranged, in a country in which almost 85% of the population claims, according to the Pew Research Center, to be “very happy” or at least “happy.”

Indeed, in light of our recent craze for positive psychology — a brand of psychotherapy designed not so much to heal mental illness as to increase happiness — as well as in light of our increasing reliance on pills that reduce sadness, anxiety and fear, we are likely to challenge Keats’ meditation outright, to condemn it as a dangerous and dated affront to the modern American dream.

But does the American addiction to happiness make any sense, especially in light of the poverty, ecological disaster and war that now haunt the globe, daily annihilating hundreds if not thousands? Isn’t it, in fact, a recipe for delusion?

And aren’t we merely trying to slice away what is most probably an essential part of our hearts, that part that can reconcile us to facts, no matter how harsh, and that also can inspire us to imagine new and more creative ways to engage with the world? Bereft of this integral element of our selves, we settle for a status quo. We yearn for comfort at any cost. We covet a good night’s sleep. We trade fortitude for blandness. “

Read more from the LA Times … http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-wilson17feb17,0,5045522.story

Related book: “Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy.”

I read this a while back and it fascinated me. I was mildly attracted to the idea, knowing I needed serious help at the time. Anyhow, I’ll branch out from NYT clips here soon. This is still really interesting …

“Delray Beach is in a class by itself, experts say, because of its compact geography and critical mass of recovering addicts who cross paths daily in the shops and bistros along Atlantic Avenue. They fly beneath the radar of tourists oblivious to telltale signs of addiction, like unapologetic chain smoking. But they see one another everywhere.” –Read more here.

(Two new books chronicling addiction by a father and son on my list … -Blue Ruin)
Nic’s book, “Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines,” is a first-person account of his drug addiction, which began while he was still in high school (where he learned to shoot up from studying a diagram on the Internet) and lasted for more than a decade. …

David’s book, “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction,” is the same story seen through the father’s eyes. He describes how a seemingly gilded youth (Nic was an honor student and co-captain of the high school water polo team) went almost overnight from casual marijuana use — just a phase, one of his teachers said — to full-blown addiction. In the beginning, David writes, he was in denial, then he was hurt and angry, and ultimately, in his worry and preoccupation and efforts to understand what happened, he became, in effect, addicted to his son’s addiction, unable to stop torturing himself. What had he done wrong?

… Nic, who had been clean for 18 months, relapsed. He writes about the setback, which involved resuming a destructive romantic relationship, in such a way that the reader can feel it coming almost before the author does.

The experience and his subsequent effort to straighten himself out yet again accounts, Nic said, for the change in his book’s tone in the second half. “I started feeling and making connections,” he said. “Before, I was tending to invent myself as a kind of fictional character and not really owning the things that were happening to me.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/books/26meth.html?ex=1204693200&en=6a964db599d1e33a&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Tweak exerpt: http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=22&pid=536194&agid=2

It’s a song by the late great Elliott Smith that goes something like this (listen.) …

Everything is exactly right
When I walk around here drunk every night
With an open container from 7-11
In St. Ides heaven
I’ve been out haunting the neighborhood
And everybody can see I’m no good
When I’m walking out between parked cars
With my head full of stars
High on amphetamines
The moon is a lightbulb breaking
It’ll go around with anyone
But it won’t come down for anyone
You think you know what brings me down
That I want those things you could never allow
You see me smiling you think it’s a frown
Turned upside down
Cos everyone is a fucking pro
And they all got answers from trouble they’ve known
And they all got to say what you should and shouldn’t do
Though they don’t have a clue
High on amphetamines
The moon is a lightbulb breaking
It’ll go around with anyone
But it won’t come down for anyone
And I won’t come down for anyone

It’s the inspiration for this blog, a journal of a girl staying clean and thinking about what that means. I listened to the song all the time when I was drinking. I also spent alot of time in and out of 7-Elevens.

(I’m considering a move back to YVR in the sort-of distant future. Goal? Work with addicts and poor people on the Downtown Eastside either here or here. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. But instead of making it happen, I got drunk and felt sorry for myself while assuming “hipster” armor at Linda’s.

Hey there, hipster. Vancouver’s (perhaps Cascadia’s?!) best band, Black Mountain (LISTEN TO THEM NOW) is working at InSite, according to the new issue of Magnet. Right on. (Full disclosure: I have a crush on Steve McBean.)

…

Where was I? Anyhow, the article of note:

“By her second week at the Salvation Army’s Harbour Light detox centre, Darlene Rowley had enough strength to keep her eyelids open, walk without shuffling and speak without straining for each word.

It was a vast improvement over her first week in the Downtown Eastside detox facility, when every movement seemed a struggle for the engaging woman.

Rowley, 43, has been addicted to drugs on and off for many years. She’s hoping to get straight this time.

“I’ve reached bottom. I’ve been through drug psychosis — I have thought that people wanted to kill me.”

But the odds are likely stacked against her. Again. Stan Karbowiak, a social worker who is Harbour Light’s acting human resources administrator, has compiled statistics showing that across B.C., only 30 per cent of detox/recovery beds are available to women.”

Read the article here:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=9a911966-9504-4978-97c9-5721b5baaff8&k=60774

Who’s crazy enough to do this? An impulsive drunk like me, that’s who.

Well, I’m Blue Ruin, a Seattle chick no longer drinking. I’m interested in addicts and addiction and want to share what I’m learning on my clean journey. This helps me stay clean. I also really like writing and I’m out of practice for various reasons, so let’s practice.

Heard of Blue Ruin before? I hope so. In Eternal Sunshine, Clementine Kruczynski dyes her hair all the time, including the color “blue ruin”. I have a lot in common with CK, no really. Here’s a quote that I actually would utter in so many words before I saw the film. I’m serious: “‘Im just a fucked up girl looking for my own piece of mind, I’m not perfect.” CK’s also a drunk and more than slightly impulsive (thus the whole memory thing, which I’d love to do! Wait, I actually did alot of it when I blacked out from drinking. Hmm. Could be a Film Studies term paper. I’m not writing it…)

Anyhow, the “blue ruin” reference comes from “9th & Hennepin” on Tom Waits’ best album, “Rain Dogs.” Good lord, I hope you’ve heard Rain Dogs. If not, leave now, heathen!

“Blue Ruin” pretty much sums up what alcohol did to my life, in two handy words. I also started drinking heavily about the same time I started listening to Tom Waits (Early Years Vol, 2 — the saddest record ever– thanks to my college ex, KL. No hard feelings, KL. Honest.)

Oh, Tom is sober now, by the way. Did you know that?

Music is a big part of my life, so I’ll be obsessing over it alot here in St. Ides Heaven.

Lyrics to “9th & Hennepin” by Tom Waits: (LISTEN):

Well it’s Ninth and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon’s teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamn town’s ready to blow…
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I’m lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat…
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he’s away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There’s nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won’t fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
til you’re full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen…
And I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train…