The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath

by Leslie Jamison

Her drinking has violated the central commandment of her gender, Thou shalt care for others,

One problem with living as if your sadness takes up the whole world is that it never does—and the people who live beyond its borders often have needs of their own.

addiction as a “narrowing of repertoire.”

self-loathing as the flip side of narcissism,

Whatever beauty comes from pain can’t usually be traded back for happiness.

If life means anything at all, it means whatever it means every hour, every minute, through any episode big or small, if only one has the awareness to sense it…

And did you get what / you wanted from this life, even so… And what did you want? / To call myself beloved, to feel myself / beloved on the earth.