Poet Kaveh Akbar got sober in 2013. Since then, he’s released a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic, and his first full-length poetry collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf. The latter—which draws from his experience as a Muslim Iranian-American in recovery—won several major awards, including a Pushcart Prize.
Akbar says that he didn’t write with any commitment until he got sober. “In early sobriety, you have to replace your fundamental leisure activity of your day,” he said, “so I had this void to fill, and had all this time to be reading and writing. It was this phenomenon of one obsession sublimating into another one, the former obsession being destructive to myself and those around me, and this new obsession being generative.”[1]
During active addiction, Akbar was living in an empty house with only a mattress. He isolated himself in this house, which was very cold due to broken windows. “[There was] no one in the world who really knew anything about what I was doing on a day-to-day basis, and that’s how I liked it,” he said.[2] There are weeks, months, conversations, and “entire relationships” he doesn’t remember.
“When I was in the throes of addiction, I was totally oblivious to the damage I was doing to myself, to my physical self and psychic self and spiritual self—to say nothing of the damages I did to people who loved me,” Akbar said. “A huge part of the labor of recovery, for me, has been discovering those damages and working to repair them.”[3] He says that recovery is no longer just abstaining from alcohol or drugs, but healing from this damage in all ways.
Since getting sober, Akbar not only writes and teaches poetry; he created a website, Divedapper, for which he interviews other poets. Akbar calls poetry his “life raft,” and believes it has the power to create “compassionate awareness” about topics like addiction. He channels much of the energy he used on drinking and using into engaging with the writing world.
“There is a huge chunk of my brain that will always pass a liquor store and be like, you know what you could do?” he said. “That’s a kind of hunger, the hunger of my disease just doing push-ups and getting stronger while my higher brain tries to distract itself. I have other hungers today that I didn’t have before. I have hunger for poetry. I have hunger to talk to people as often as I can about poems and to engage people deeply about poems. To get to be of service to poetry as much as I can in this life.”[4]
If you are struggling with a substance use or a mental health disorder, there is hope. TruHealing Centers offers high-quality treatment for addiction and mental health disorders in facilities across the country. Our staff—many of whom are in recovery themselves—will help you find the life you are passionate about in recovery. To learn more, call an admissions specialist at 410-593-0005.
[1] https://www.thefix.com/kaveh-akbar-maps-unprecedented-experience-portrait-alcoholic
[2] https://lithub.com/kaveh-akbar-bewilderment-is-at-the-core-of-every-great-poem/
[3] https://www.indystar.com/story/entertainment/2017/10/16/purdue-professor-writes-through-alcohol-addiction-poetry-collection/755748001/
[4] https://lithub.com/kaveh-akbar-bewilderment-is-at-the-core-of-every-great-poem/