Recovery Go-Bag: Erin Khar
“My need to control always puts me out of control, and this book reminds me to accept where I am and how things are in the moment.”
I kicked around an idea for “Desert Island Discs” for recovery for a couple of years, but instead of top-five favorite music albums you’d take with you to a desert island, it would be which recovery books you would bring.
I had this experience when, out of an abundance of precaution, we left our home and neighborhood semi-urgently during the recent LA fires. What did I throw in my bag? Well, two physical copies of my marked-up version of “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chödrön and “How to Do Nothing” by Jenny Odell. I took those two because I feel like I’ve studied them and used them enough during various crises, both existential and familial, that I know how beneficial they are and how essential they’d be had we been away from our home for an extended period or, God forbid, lost everything. We were fine. And I was fine, and I knew if I stuck to my books, I would be fine even if something terrible did happen.
It gave me the idea to ask other writers, artists, and musicians about what they’d bring with them if shit went down and they were forced to only bring a few items with them to help keep their recovery intact, well — what would those items be?
Today, our guest is writer Erin Khar.
Recovery Go-Bag: Erin Khar
If I were to go today, you’d find this in my bag.
Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart: I almost left this book off my list because everyone, thus far, has it on theirs, too! But it is the first book I reach for when I am in crisis, and so many of us pick it for a reason. I have often said that my need to control always puts me out of control, and this book reminds me to accept where I am and how things are in the moment.
Three poems, printed, because they make me feel seen: Anne Sexton’s (abusive person; brilliant writer) Admonitions to a Special Person, Kim Addonizio’s To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall (it went viral for a reason), and a short poem titled Unwary (by “A.C.H.”) that my mother cut out of a local newspaper in Elgin, Illinois sometime in the late ’50s/early ’60s.
Two Jeanette Winterson books: Written on the Body (given to me by my best friend and first read on a Sunday afternoon in Paris while having the kind of existential crisis a 22-year-old mentally ill young woman has) and The Passion (given to me by a man during the same “messy” era of my life). I can happily read them again and again.
Back to Black by Kilian perfume: because it is the most comforting scent for me and I like to give my olfactory system what it desires.
A piece of green fluorite or malachite: I am not super-woo-woo, but they feel good in the hand, I find their colors soothing (team green, apparently!), and having an object in my hand helps ground me.
Water: This may seem obvious, but I’ve found that 95% of the time, drinking water improves whatever is ailing me (physically or mentally). Hydration for the win (and still, I forget this all the time).
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Erin Khar is a writer, advocate, and the author of STRUNG OUT. Her long-running advice column, Ask Erin, lives on Substack. Erin has been in recovery for 22 years and has spent the last 15 years writing and speaking about drug prevention, treatment, education, and drug policy reform. She lives in New York City.
Previously:
Recovery Go-Bag: Holly Whitaker
"It’s important for me to stress that I would definitely try to put five huge books in a go-bag — even though it’s completely fucking impractical — because I’m me and I always bring too many books instead of what I actually need and end up paying for it."
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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:
A Jelly-Fish
by Marianne Moore
*************************
Visible, invisible,
A fluctuating charm,
An amber-colored amethyst
Inhabits it; your arm
Approaches, and
It opens and
It closes;
You have meant
To catch it,
And it shrivels;
You abandon
Your intent—
It opens, and it
Closes and you
Reach for it—
The blue
Surrounding it
Grows cloudy, and
It floats away
From you.
—Via Poets.org
