Oh Jerry. I love that you said everybody on the planet is recovering from something, because my husband said that just before he died. Does it follow, then, that everyone deserves our compassion (as opposed to scorn)? I hope so. The deserving our compassion part I love even more, and I love you for saying that because it means you practice self-compassion, making you loveable.
As a reader with long-term recovery, these lines resonated for me: "Except for the neurosis, narcissism, depression, paranoia, arrogance, insomnia, procrastination, sex, overspending, insane thoughts and random irrational fears, I’m pretty much fine."
What a great interview! "I don’t trust anybody who hasn’t been to hell," Jerry Stahl says. Neither do I, but I never realized it till he said it for me.
The end hit hard. "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." This really resonated with me. x
Hooray. Finally, something for the rest of us who are not glowing with late-life enlightenment, energetic resolution or distillated comprehension. What a beauty. I could just frame the whole thing and read it every day. Thank you.
I enjoyed your story Jerry. I have been sober for 39 years and as a self-styled Lone Ranger, attending AA and NA meetings in recovery was life altering for me. I have many fond memories made in recovery. Like meeting and bonding with a 65 year old guy in AA when I was on vacation in Fort Lauderdale. He introduced me to Val, she and her husband were the first couple in AA. He drove me to the airport at the end of my stay and shared with me that when he travelled by plane and had time to wait for his next flight, he had asked the airline staff to page all friends of Bill W. to meet him at the bar and thus he would have a mini AA meeting! I have never forgotten the 2 days we just hung our together.
Jerry Stahl is both brave and brilliant. I've known he was brilliant since the mid-1970s and I found his work in magazines. I've since learned a lot more about him as a human being, and it's made me think he was even more impressive than I first thought.
Excellent interview, so relatable. I’m in my third year of recovery from a lifelong relationship with Anorexia. I’ve spent my life addicted to one thing or another, and as Jerry said I believe we are all recovering from something. Learning to feel without the anesthetic relief of a drug or some numbing technique like starving myself has been a jolt to the nervous system. Back in 2021, I almost checked out. Thank God for his tender mercy and my family for their unconditional love.
I find that the most challenging part of aging is to realize there are some things that are just not able to ‘recover’ and must be tolerated as is. That day sucked.
Most of us get used to a body that heals even serious things over time, and we expect ourselves to recover from anything. What a great time to be alive! Medicine has taken fantastic leaps!
But time turns a quiet corner and reality sets in. That fused joint is permanent. That Sister is gone. That head injury/bi polar/massive scar/lost limb/ADD/trauma/fill in your own blank is now a physical entity and unlikely to be hocus-pocused away.
Changes are inevitable and we must be reasonable in what fights we pick. Yeah, there’s a long slope of normalizing loss.
This occurred to me last year when I did have the opportunity to fundamentally repair/replace two worn out parts! Refreshing opportunity! Cataract surgery was actually fun. It was a reprieve in an otherwise acceptably deteriorating form of transportation, the bod.
Yes recovery is universal… until it’s not. We kind of take it for granted, but it’s quite remarkable really. Some dogs are Blue Heelers, most are just healers. Ammirite?
Oh my goodness - thank you Mr. Stahl for a great, before 9am outright guffaw…when I read what you still need to work on. Din't we all. It was that quiet, sneak up delivery that always hits.
" if you go around blabbing about how you’re in AA, and you sound like an idiot, some poor bastard who really needs help is going to hear you, think the joint is full of idiots, and stay out there and die"
....reminds me of something Leonard Cohen once said:
"I don’t think my writing has got personal enough yet... when it’s really personal everybody understands it. There is a middle ground which is just unzipping and self-indulgence, but when you really tell the truth people immediately perceive that.”
Mr. Stahl is clearly intimately familiar with the difference between true honest and unzipping. Beautiful article.
"What’s the best recovery memoir you’ve ever read?" In addition to Stahl's referrals, there are classics not to be missed. These include London's John Barleycorn, Burrough's Junkie, and Kerouac's Big Sur.
i'm merely an aspirational pre-Oldster (40) but having pretty much turned the whole ship around by converting to California Sober three years back, this piece was great.
also "Bad Boys II" is unironically one of my all-time favorite films. very cool to hear from this guy and realize i was already a fan and didnt know it.
Really interesting interview and plan on seeing the movie and reading the books. He really distills his thoughts and gets to the point which makes it all the more riviting. An interview to which everyone can secretly or openly relate .
Oh Jerry. I love that you said everybody on the planet is recovering from something, because my husband said that just before he died. Does it follow, then, that everyone deserves our compassion (as opposed to scorn)? I hope so. The deserving our compassion part I love even more, and I love you for saying that because it means you practice self-compassion, making you loveable.
As a reader with long-term recovery, these lines resonated for me: "Except for the neurosis, narcissism, depression, paranoia, arrogance, insomnia, procrastination, sex, overspending, insane thoughts and random irrational fears, I’m pretty much fine."
What a great interview! "I don’t trust anybody who hasn’t been to hell," Jerry Stahl says. Neither do I, but I never realized it till he said it for me.
The end hit hard. "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." This really resonated with me. x
Hooray. Finally, something for the rest of us who are not glowing with late-life enlightenment, energetic resolution or distillated comprehension. What a beauty. I could just frame the whole thing and read it every day. Thank you.
I enjoyed your story Jerry. I have been sober for 39 years and as a self-styled Lone Ranger, attending AA and NA meetings in recovery was life altering for me. I have many fond memories made in recovery. Like meeting and bonding with a 65 year old guy in AA when I was on vacation in Fort Lauderdale. He introduced me to Val, she and her husband were the first couple in AA. He drove me to the airport at the end of my stay and shared with me that when he travelled by plane and had time to wait for his next flight, he had asked the airline staff to page all friends of Bill W. to meet him at the bar and thus he would have a mini AA meeting! I have never forgotten the 2 days we just hung our together.
Jerry Stahl is both brave and brilliant. I've known he was brilliant since the mid-1970s and I found his work in magazines. I've since learned a lot more about him as a human being, and it's made me think he was even more impressive than I first thought.
Excellent interview, so relatable. I’m in my third year of recovery from a lifelong relationship with Anorexia. I’ve spent my life addicted to one thing or another, and as Jerry said I believe we are all recovering from something. Learning to feel without the anesthetic relief of a drug or some numbing technique like starving myself has been a jolt to the nervous system. Back in 2021, I almost checked out. Thank God for his tender mercy and my family for their unconditional love.
I find that the most challenging part of aging is to realize there are some things that are just not able to ‘recover’ and must be tolerated as is. That day sucked.
Most of us get used to a body that heals even serious things over time, and we expect ourselves to recover from anything. What a great time to be alive! Medicine has taken fantastic leaps!
But time turns a quiet corner and reality sets in. That fused joint is permanent. That Sister is gone. That head injury/bi polar/massive scar/lost limb/ADD/trauma/fill in your own blank is now a physical entity and unlikely to be hocus-pocused away.
Changes are inevitable and we must be reasonable in what fights we pick. Yeah, there’s a long slope of normalizing loss.
This occurred to me last year when I did have the opportunity to fundamentally repair/replace two worn out parts! Refreshing opportunity! Cataract surgery was actually fun. It was a reprieve in an otherwise acceptably deteriorating form of transportation, the bod.
Yes recovery is universal… until it’s not. We kind of take it for granted, but it’s quite remarkable really. Some dogs are Blue Heelers, most are just healers. Ammirite?
Yes, everyone is recovering from something ....the line will be engraved in my heart for ever
Oh my goodness - thank you Mr. Stahl for a great, before 9am outright guffaw…when I read what you still need to work on. Din't we all. It was that quiet, sneak up delivery that always hits.
This...
" if you go around blabbing about how you’re in AA, and you sound like an idiot, some poor bastard who really needs help is going to hear you, think the joint is full of idiots, and stay out there and die"
....reminds me of something Leonard Cohen once said:
"I don’t think my writing has got personal enough yet... when it’s really personal everybody understands it. There is a middle ground which is just unzipping and self-indulgence, but when you really tell the truth people immediately perceive that.”
Mr. Stahl is clearly intimately familiar with the difference between true honest and unzipping. Beautiful article.
"What’s the best recovery memoir you’ve ever read?" In addition to Stahl's referrals, there are classics not to be missed. These include London's John Barleycorn, Burrough's Junkie, and Kerouac's Big Sur.
i'm merely an aspirational pre-Oldster (40) but having pretty much turned the whole ship around by converting to California Sober three years back, this piece was great.
also "Bad Boys II" is unironically one of my all-time favorite films. very cool to hear from this guy and realize i was already a fan and didnt know it.
Great interview, from one who has also been to hell. Sober since 2012 and write about it in my forthcoming memoir 🌹🌞🌹
Really interesting interview and plan on seeing the movie and reading the books. He really distills his thoughts and gets to the point which makes it all the more riviting. An interview to which everyone can secretly or openly relate .