Sobriety
Interview with a 51-Year-Old Sober Person: Carvell Wallace
“I don’t have to become perfect. I just have to get up every day and do the work to get better.”
Sobriety
+5
Interviews with a Bunch of Older Sober People
A look back at another year of Sober Oldster questionnaires.
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 56-Year-Old Sober Person: Elizabeth Gilbert
“I honestly cannot think of anything about being in recovery that is harder than not being in recovery.”
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 54-Year-Old Sober Person: Rhett Miller
“It’s hard feeling isolated in a roomful of partying people, and the hilarious thing is that that’s my job.”
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 63-Year-Old Sober Person: Rick Moody
“When I was active, any stiff breeze, any mild bit of reversal, was enough to send me down into the narcissistic ball of pain. Now, mostly, I am just exceedingly glad still to be here.”
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 56-Year-Old Sober Person: Margaret Cho
“I was definitely born with the ‘need.’ That urge to put something between me and living.”
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 56-Year-Old Sober Person: Nadia Bolz-Weber
“Not only do I reliably know where I am when I wake up, I never wake up in pools of vodka vomit anymore. It’s so bad for your skin, you know . . . very corrosive.”
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 56-Year-Old Sober Person: Richard Rushfield
“Like so many, I grew up with broken tools for relating to others, and alcohol became the way I learned how to do that.”
Poet
+6
Interview with a 50-Year-Old Sober Person: Laurie Woolever
“Life is so much simpler, in the best possible way. Nothing is perfect, but I can see things for what they are.”
Poet
+6
Interview with a 51-Year-Old Sober Person: Sharon Silke
“I used to be really funny and entertaining, to a certain point, when I was drinking. That is, until I got messy and repetitive and annoying.”
Poet
+6
Interview with a 59-Year-Old Sober Person: Seth David Branitz
“Monstrous thoughts still form, but I recognize them and move quickly past. I no longer do terrible things to myself or others.”
Poet
+6
Interview with a 52-Year-Old Sober Person: Ana Marie Cox
“I’ve come to think of self-hatred as the addiction I’ve struggled with the most. It's the thing that will take me out.”
Poet
+6
Interview with a 64-Year-Old Sober Person: Nick Flynn
"For a little while it felt like I had figured it out, how to be both sober and to be fucked up. "
Poet
+6
Interview with a 54-Year-Old Sober Person: Kristi Coulter
"I don’t think being in recovery is hard. I think life is hard, and there is real horror in understanding that drinking cannot actually alter reality."
Sobriety
+5
Interview with a 65-Year-Old Sober Person: Kathy Valentine
"I had to learn how to be a grown-up—it didn’t help that I’d been a successful musician in a successful band throughout most of those years, which can be a very easy career to stay immature in."
Sobriety
+6
Interview with a 60-Year-Old Sober Person: Chris Wells
"I am less of a child than I used to be. I rely less on other people to make a place for me in the world."
Sobriety
+6
Interview with a 66-Year-Old Sober Person: Anne Gregory
"The best things are not feeling ashamed, not having a hangover and not thinking about suicide."
Sobriety
+6
Interview with a 57-Year-Old Sober Person: Claire Dederer
"I had no idea, in my conscious mind, that I had a drinking problem. My shame was so profound that I was hiding reality even from myself—especially from myself. I get tired just thinking about it."
Sobriety
+6
Interview with a 70-Year-Old Sober Person: Jerry Stahl
"I have come to realize that everybody on the planet is recovering from something. And deserves our compassion. It’s pretty much the human condition. All our secrets are the same."
Sobriety
+6
Interview with a 69-Year-Old Sober Person: Kim Wozencraft
"I hope that I’m able to listen and empathize and not be as solipsistic as I was when I was actively alcohol dependent."
Sobriety
+6
Interview with a 53-Year-Old Sober Person: Joan As Police Woman
"I am done with being cool. It's not all that."
Sobriety
+6
