Is it Useful to Confront Character Defects?
In 12-step fellowships, there’s an idea of confronting personality flaws; step 6 is, “[We] were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.” The idea is that traits like selfishness, resentment, or envy poison your thinking and can lead to addictive behaviors. The Term “Character Defects” Might Be Complicated for Some To […]
Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamison—author of The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, The Empathy Exams, and others—has been sober since 2010. In The Recovering, Jamison tells the story of her own recovery and those of other famous creatives who got sober. Like some of the artists mentioned in the book, Jamison produced work while in active addiction. “It […]
Sober Stories: Doug
What led you to get sober? The Drug Enforcement Administration, basically. I’d been drinking and drugging for about 30 years. The last two years, I was using crystal meth heavily. I had a $500 a day habit, and to keep that going I had to sell a lot of drugs. Eventually the DEA put me […]
12-Step Meetings in 2020
Those who got sober through the 12 steps were excited to hear last week that Alcoholics Anonymous – long criticized for lacking scientific evidence to back its effectiveness – got a stamp of approval from the Cochrane Reviews.