Foreword

Preface

Writing for Life

Perie Longo

Under the Influence

Scott Russell Sanders

Toys in the Attic

Chase Twichell

Cancelled Elegy

Molly Peacock

Pretty Red Stripes

Linda Gray Sexton

Last Day Out

Sue William Silverman

The Bottom

Denise Duhamel

Lisa

Kera Bolonik

The Doppler Effect

B.H. Fairchild

Thrall

Frederick and Steven Barthelme

Putting Down the Duck

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas

To Dettner

Diana M. Raab

Sweet Rolls and Vodka

Victoria Patterson

Sunset Boulevard

Stephen Jay Schwartz

John Amen

The World Breaks Everyone

Ruth Fowler

A Better Place to Live

Maud Casey

On the Other Side

David Huddle

Night of the Violet Universe

Rachel Yoder

Sayonara Marijuana Mon Amour

Chase Twichell

The Beep

Anna David

If There’s a God

Gregory Orr

Instructions on the Use of Alcohol

James Brown

Acknowledgments

Appendix – Support Groups and Organizations

Contributors

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Some of the material in this volume has appeared previously:

Frederick and Steven Barthelme, “Thrall” from Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss by Frederick and Steven Barthelme. Copyright © 1999 by Frederick and Steven Barthelme. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Kera Bolonik, “Lisa,” first appeared in Glamour in April 2005 under the title, “Two Friends, One Suicide.” Used by permission of the author.

James Brown, “Instructions on the Use of Alcohol,” appeared under the title of, “How Some of Us Becomes Drunks and Junkies” and originally appeared in Redivider: A Journal of New Literature. Used with permission from Counterpoint Press, reprinted here from This River: A Memoir.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, “Putting Down the Duck,” from Holy Hunger: A Memoir of Desire by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Copyright © 1998 by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House.

Maud Casey, “A Better Place to Live,” was previously published in Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey (HarperCollins, 2002). Used with permission.

Perie Longo. “Writing For Life,” first appeared in the Journal of Poetry Therapy (December, 2008). Used by permission of the author.

Gregory Orr, “If There’s a God…” from The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Gregory Orr. Reprinted with permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.

Victoria Patterson, “Sweet Rolls and Vodka,” first appeared in The Sun. (July, 2006). Used by permission of the author.

Scott Russell Sanders, “Under the Influence,” Copyright © 1989 by Scott Russell Sanders; first published in Harper’s; from the author’s Secrets of the Universe (Beacon, 1991); reprinted by permission of the author and the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency.

Linda Gray Sexton, “Pretty Red Stripes,” is an excerpt from Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide, published by Counterpoint in 2010. Used with permission.

Sue William Silverman, “Last Day Out,” from Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey Through Sexual Addiction by Sue William Silverman. Copyright © 2001 by Sue William Silverman. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2001.

Chase Twichell, “Toys in the Attic,” was previously published in Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey (HarperCollins, 2002). Used with permission.

Chase Twichell, “Sayonara Marijuana Mon Amour,” from Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2010 by Chase Twichell. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.

Rachel Yoder, “Night of the Violet Universe.” Copyright ? Rachel Yoder. An earlier version of this essay was originally published in The New York Times, June 11, 2006, under the title, “Strung Out on Love and Checked In for Treatment.” Used with permission.

The editors would like to thank our publisher, Victor R. Volkman for his relentless support and belief in the project, Philip Lopate for suggesting the book title, and most importantly all the contributors for sharing their stories and poems of struggle and hope.

APPENDIX

SUPPORT GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS

ALCOHOL AND DRUG ADDICTION

Adult Children of Alcoholics

(310) 534-1815

www.adultchildren.org

Al-Anon/Alateen

(757) 563-1600

www.al-anon.alateen.org

Alcoholics Anonymous

(212) 870-3400

www.aa.org

Cocaine Addicts’ Family Groups

(520) 513-5088

www.co-anon.org

Cocaine Anonymous

(310) 559-5833

www.ca.org

Crystal Meth Anonymous

(213) 488-4455

www.crystalmeth.org

Hazelden

(800) 257-7810

www.hazelden.org

Marijuana Anonymous

(800) 766-6779

www.marijuana-anonymous.org

Narcotics Anonymous

(818) 773-9999

www.na.org

National Association for Children of Alcoholics

(888) 554-2627

www.nacoa.net

National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence

(212) 269-7797

www.ncadd.org

National Institute on Drug Abuse

(301) 443-1124

www.nida.nih.gov

National Youth Recovery Foundation

(651) 773-8378

www.nationayouthrecovery.com

The Partnership

(855) 378-4373

www.drugfree.org

Sober Recovery

www.soberrecovery.com

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Admin-istration (SAMHSA)

(240) 276-2000

www.samhsa.gov

EATING DISORDERS

Anorexia Nervosa/Associated Disorders

(847) 831-3438

www.anad.org

Compulsive Eaters Anonymous

(508) 891-2664

www.ceahowsci.com

Mirasol

(800) 520-1700

www.mirasol.net

Overeaters Anonymous

(505) 891-2664

www.oa.org

GAMBLING

Debtors Anonymous

(310) 822-7250

www.debtorsanonymous.org

Gamblers Anonymous

(213) 386-8789

www.gamblersanonymous.org

MENTAL HEALTH

American Psychiatric Association

(888) 357-7924

www.psych.org

American Psychological Association

(800) 374-2721

www.apa.org

Association for Addiction Professionals

(800) 548-0497

www.naadac.org

Codependents Anonymous

(888) 444-2359

www.coda.org

Healthy Minds

www.HealthyMinds.org

Help Guide

www.helpguide.org

Mental Health America

(703) 684-7722

www.nmha.org

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

(800) 950-6264

www.nami.org

National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems

(202) 393-6700

www.naphs.org

Workaholics Anonymous

(510) 273-9253

www.workaholics-anonymous.org

SELF-INJURY

American Self-Harm Information Clearinghouse

(206) 604-8963

www.selfinjury.org

S.A.F.E. Alternatives

(800) 366-8288

www.selfinjury.com

Self Injury Foundation

(888) 962-6774

www.selfinjuryfoundation.org

SEX & LOVE ADDICTION

Recovering Couples Anonymous

(510) 663-2312

www.recovering-couples.org

Sex Addicts Anonymous

(800) 477-8191

www.sexaa.org

Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous

(210) 828-7900

www.slaafws.org

Sexaholics Anonymous

(800) 424-8777

www.sa.org

Sexual Compulsives Anonymous

(800) 977-HEAL

www.sca-recovery.org

CONTRIBUTORS

JOHN AMEN is the author of three collections of poetry: Christening the Dancer (Uccelli Press 2003), More of Me Disappears (Cross-Cultural Communications 2005), and At the Threshold of Alchemy (Presa 2009). In addition, his work has appeared in numerous publications nationally and internationally. He has released two folk/folk rock CDs: All I’ll Never Need (Cool Midget 2004) and Ridiculous Empire (2008). He is also an artist, working primarily with acrylics on canvas. Further information is available on his website: www.johnamen.com. Amen travels widely giving readings, doing musical performances, and conducting workshops. He founded and continues to edit The Pedestal Magazine (www.thepedestalmagazine.com).

FREDERICK BARTHELME directed the Center for Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi until 2010. He won an NEA Fellowship and numerous grants as editor of Mississippi Review, which he edited from 1977-2010, and online 1995-2010. He is author of Moon Deluxe, Second Marriage, Tracer, Two Against One, Natural Selection, The Brothers, Painted Desert, and Bob the Gambler, and a contributor to The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Playboy, and Epoch. His memoir, Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, was co-authored with his brother, Steven, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The same honor was awarded his retrospective collection of stories, The Law of Averages, published by Counterpoint. His novel Elroy Nights, October 2003, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of five finalists for the 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award. His latest novel, Waveland, was published by Doubleday, in 2010.

KERA BOLONIK’S essays, reviews, and features have appeared in New York Magazine, Glamour, Bookforum, The Nation, Salon.com, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

JAMES BROWN is the author of several novels, including Lucky Town, and the memoirs This River and The Los Angeles Diaries. His work has appeared in numerous publications including GQ, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Ploughshares. He teaches in the M.F.A. Program at Cal State San Bernardino.

MARGARET BULLITT-JONAS serves as Priest Associate of Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. A noted retreat leader and writer, she has focused recent retreats on divine/human intimacy, spiritual awakening, and the sacredness of Creation. Her memoir, Holy Hunger: A Woman’s Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment portrays her recovery from an eating disorder and growing up in a dysfunctional family. Her second book, Christ’s Passion, Our Passions (Cowley, 2002) explores forgiveness, hope, and compassion in light of Jesus’ last words from the cross. Her work has been published in a variety of journals and in anthologies of sermons, essays, and prayers. From 1992 until 2005 she was a Lecturer in Pastoral Theology at Episcopal Divinity School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she taught courses on prayer, the spirituality of addiction, and environmental ministry. Margaret lives with her family in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her website is: www.holyhunger.org.

MAUD CASEY is the author of two novels, The Shape of Things to Come and Genealogy, and a collection of stories, Drastic. She has received international fellowships from the Fundacion Valparaiso, Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, and the Château de Lavigny, and is the recipient of the 2008 Calvino Prize. She lives in Washington, D.C. and teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Maryland and the Warren Wilson low-residency MFA Program.

ANNA DAVID is the author of the novels Party Girl and Bought and the editor of the anthology Reality Matters. She’s written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Playboy, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Details, and Vanity Fair, among many other publications. She’s the Executive Editor of The Fix, a website dedicated to addiction. Her memoir, Falling for Me, was published by HarperCollins October 2011.

DENISE DUHAMEL is the author, most recently, of Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), Two and Two (Pittsburgh, 2005), Mille et un Sentiments (Firewheel, 2005) and Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (Pittsburgh, 2001). A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she is a professor at Florida International University in Miami.

B.H. FAIRCHILD has published several books of poetry and criticism, including The Art of the Lathe, finalist for the National Book Award and recipient of the William Carlos Williams and Kingsley Tufts Awards, and Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry and the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. His most recent book is Usher, chosen by The Los Angeles Times as one of their Favorite Books in poetry and fiction for 2009.

RUTH FOWLER grew up in the mountains of North Wales. She received a first class BA (Hons) MA MPhil in English Literature from Cambridge University, and then traveled the world eking out a living from writing, teaching, sailing, cooking and begging. Ruth lived in Nepal, India, Argentina, the South of France, the Alps, Florida, the Caribbean and Central America before finding herself in New York, penniless and without a visa. This time in New York formed the subject for her first book, Girl Undressed, published by Viking Penguin (US) in 2008. Ruth lives between Los Angeles and London, and works as a journalist and screen-writer. She is currently writing her second book.

DAVID HUDDLE is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University. He taught for thirty-eight years at the University of Vermont and continues to teach at the Bread Loaf School of English. Huddle’s work has appeared in TriQuarterly, The American Scholar, The Hudson Review, Story, Esquire, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Poetry, Best American Short Stories, The New York Times Book Review, Shenandoah, The Kenyon Review, and The Georgia Review. His novel, The Story of a Million Years (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) was named a Distinguished Book of the Year by Esquire and a Best Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times Book Review. In 2012, LSU Press will publish his seventh poetry collection, Black Snake at the Family Reunion, and his third novel, Nothing Can Make Me Do This, was released in October 2011.

PERIE LONGO was Santa Barbara Poet Laureate from 2007-2009 and president of the National Association for Poetry Therapy 2005-2007. She has published three books of poetry: Milking the Earth, The Privacy of Wind, and With Nothing behind but Sky: a journey through grief. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review, Connecticut Review, Nimrod, Paterson Literary Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has been on the staff of the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference since 1984 and leads her own summer poetry workshop. As a psychotherapist, she integrates poetry for wellness, leading groups with Hospice and the Sanctuary Psychiatric Centers of Santa Barbara. She is poetry chair for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and has been featured on the Charles Osgood radio show and in the Huntington Post.

GREGORY ORR is the author of ten collections of poetry, the most recent of which are two book-length lyric sequences, How Beautiful the Beloved and Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved. He is also the author of a memoir, The Blessing; and Poetry as Survival about the survival function of lyric poetry. His recent essay about his work as a civil rights volunteer in the Deep South in 1965, “Return to Hayneville,” was reprinted in three annual prose anthologies (Best Essays 2009, Best Creative Non-Fiction 2009 and The Pushcart Prizes). He is a Professor of English at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1975 and was the founder and first director of its MFA Program in Writing.

VICTORIA PATTERSON is the author of the novel This Vacant Paradise, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Drift, her collection of interlinked short stories, was a finalist for the California Book Award and the 2009 Story Prize. The San Francisco Chronicle selected Drift as one of the best books of 2009. Her work has appeared in various publications and journals, including The Los Angeles Times, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Southern Review. She lives with her family in Southern California and teaches through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at University of California Riverside.

MOLLY PEACOCK is the author of The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 as well as six volumes of poetry, including The Second Blush. Her work is widely anthologized in The Best of the Best American Poetry, The Best American Essays, and The Oxford Book of American Poetry.

DIANA M. RAAB is a registered nurse and award-winning memoirist and poet. She blogs for the Huffington Post and teaches in UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and in conferences around the country. She holds her MFA in Nonfiction from Spalding University. She compiled and edited, Writers and Their Notebooks, winner of a 2011 Eric Hoffer Award for academic presses, and finalist for Foreword Magazine’s 2010 Book of the Year. She has two memoirs, Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey and Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal and three poetry collections: My Muse Undresses Me, Dear Anaïs: My Life in Poems for You, and The Guilt Gene. She’s the recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Book award for best health and wellness book for Getting Pregnant and Staying Pregnant: Overcoming Infertility and High Risk Pregnancy. Her website: is www.dianaraab.com.

SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS is the author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction including, most recently, A Private History of Awe and A Conservationist Manifesto. Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010 he was named the National Winner of the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University, where he taught from 1971 to 2009. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have reared two children in their hometown of Bloomington in the hardwood hill country of Indiana’s White River Valley.

STEPHEN JAY SCHWARTZ is a Los Angeles Times Bestselling author who has spent a number of years as the Director of Development for Wolfgang Petersen where he worked with writers, producers and studio executives to develop screenplays for production. Among the film projects he helped developed are Air Force One, Outbreak, and Bicentennial Man. His two novels, Boulevard and Beat, follow the dysfunctional journey of LAPD robbery-homicide detective Hayden Glass as he fights crime and corruption while struggling with his own sex-addiction. Stephen has also written for the Discovery Channel and is currently writing his third novel, as well as a 3-D zombie film on assignment. He lives in Southern California and his website is www.stephenjayschwartz.com.

LINDA GRAY SEXTON is the daughter of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton and the author of the memoir Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back To My Mother, Anne Sexton, which was published to wide acclaim, optioned by Miramax films, and named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her first novel, Rituals, came out in 1981; Mirror Images, Points of Light, and Private Acts were subsequently published over a ten year period. Points of Light was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame Special for CBS television and was translated into thirteen languages. Sexton’s most recent memoir, Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide, is about her struggle with her own mental illness and the legacy of suicide left to her by her mother. She confronts deep-seated issues, outlives her mother and curbs the haunting cycle of suicide she once seemed destined to inherit. Sexton lives in California with her husband and her Dalmatian, Breeze. Her website is www.lindagraysexton.com.

SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN’s memoir Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey Through Sexual Addiction is also a Lifetime television movie. Her first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs award in creative nonfiction, while her craft book, Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir, was awarded Honorable Mention in ForeWord Review’s book-of-the-year award in the category of “Writing.” One of her essays appears in The Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Nonfiction; others won contests with Hotel Amerika, Mid-American Review, and Water~Stone Review. As a professional speaker, Sue has appeared on The View, Anderson Cooper-360, and CNN-Headline News. Her poetry collection is Hieroglyphics in Neon, and she teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her website is www.suewilliamsilverman.com.

JERRY STAHL is the author of six books, including the memoir Permanent Midnight (made into a movie starring Ben Stiller), and the novels Pain Killers, Perv and I, Fatty. Formerly the Culture Columnist for Details, he is a Pushcart Prize recipient, and his fiction and journalism have appeared in The Believer, The New York Times, Playboy and LA Weekly, among other places. His work has also been anthologized and widely translated, and he has worked extensively in film and television. Most recently, Stahl wrote the HBO film, Hemingway & Gellhorn, which premieres in 2012 with Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman. He is currently completing the screenplay for The Thin Man, starring Johnny Depp and working on a new novel.

CHASE TWICHELL’s most recent book is Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon, 2010). She lives in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York and Miami.

RACHEL YODER edits Draft: the journal of process, a publication which features stories, first drafts, and interviews with the author (draftjournal.com). She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona and an MFA in nonfiction writing from The University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Sun Magazine, Missouri Review, and Kenyon Review, among others, and has been selected for anthologies including Best of the Web 2010 and Rumpus Women. Her website is www.racheljyoder.com.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDIX

SUPPORT GROUPS AND ORGANIZATIONS

ALCOHOL AND DRUG ADDICTION

CONTRIBUTORS

WRITING FOR LIFE

Perie Longo