Getting Up and Dressing Up in Recovery

Writer and poet, Mary Karr, who wrote “The Liar’s Club”—her memoir of growing up in a crazy family, and also “Lit” --my favorite chronology of getting sober—gave me one of my favorite lines about getting dressed. Karr credits her father with this comment as he observed her clothing choices:

“Mary, there’s a fine line between an outfit and a get-up.”

Isn’t that a perfect distinction?

Today I chose to wear a get-up: My pink, vintage Peck & Peck wool coat. (It has little fringes on the four perfectly placed Chanel style pockets). I added a polka dot wool scarf that is color-blocked in pink, green, yellow and red, and I added a rose-colored baseball cap, and my “Obama-Green” gloves, so named because they are the exact gloves that Michelle Obama wore at the first Presidential Inauguration (and which I had been wearing years before her stylist found them at J. Crew. No one wanted that weird green before she wore them with her yellow coat on that freezing day.)

I felt festive and happy—and smiling-- in this colorful get-up as I ran my errands. 

It is long recovery that lets me have this kind of happy, get-up day. There is so much freedom to both care and not care what I look like. And to know that tomorrow I can make another choice and feel peaceful in head-to-toe taupe, or a navy suit and pearls. Dress as me? I am all of them. 

We are told in recovery not to compare our insides to someone else’s outsides, but we also have to learn to align our insides and our own outsides, that is to allow ourselves to enjoy both “get-ups” and outfits as we dress for our wonderful, recovered lives.


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There is a chapter on clothing and recovery in, "Out of the Woods--A Guide to Long-term Recovery" published by Central Recovery Press.

A New Song and Recovery Anthem

I have loved Mary Karr's poetry for many years, then I gobbled up her first memoir, "The Liar's Club" and "Cherry" and then I savored her masterpiece of addiction, surrender and recovery called, "Lit".

This year her beautiful language became song lyrics and were performed by a collective of stunning musicians. The cd is  called, "Kin".  I put it on my IPad and I sing along making my daily exercise into recovery walks.

One of my favorite songs from Karr's album is called, "Just Pleasing You" and is performed by Vince Gill. It has become my new recovery anthem. I'm attaching the link below so you can hear this song. If the link doesn't work for you try ITunes or Amazon or just Google "Just Pleasing You" by Vince Gill. I assure you--this is a recovery song for our Out of the Woods crew.

Thinking about this makes me want to ask you: Do you have a recovery song? or a song from any genre that represents your recovery? For years my anthem was a gratitude song, "Your Love is Lifting Me Higher" (and yes, I did fantasize being both the lead and the fringe shaking backup singer). But what is your song? Share it here please.


Here is the link to Vince Gill and Mary Karr's "Just Pleasing You":


http://www.youtube.com/v/3V-gTM0Czmw?version=3&autohide=1&autoplay=1&showinfo=1&attribution_tag=1Aw_ncg44UtFOTfCT3UOAA&feature=share&autohide=1

Mary Karr Lit and Kin

I’m re-reading the wonderful recovery memoir, Lit, by Mary Karr. This is one of those books that I can read again and again and learn something new each time. I think that’s because I keep changing and so I am open to Karr’s ideas with each stage of my own growth. I especially love to listen to this book, Lit, on cd in the car. That book saves me many days as I go to and from work.

Karr is a sensational poet and now also lyricist with her first album recently released called: Kin. On the Kin soundtrack Karr’s songs are performed by Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, Vince Gill, Rosanne Cash and other amazing singers. This is a fine example of how a recovery life can indeed take us beyond our wildest dreams.

The beauty of the memoir, Lit and the album Kin is that you don’t need to know anything about recovery or addiction or alcoholism. You can enjoy these works of art for their sheer beauty, the poetic language, the laugh out loud gut-busting humor and Karrr’s sensational storytelling. 

A Punishing God?

Many gifts in “Lit”, Mary Karr’s new book. Here is one that helped me.

Karr describes talking to her spiritual director about her concept of God. Karr realizes that she has many times felt abandoned or punished by God. She says—and this is what hit home for me—“How is that possible; I have no childhood experience of a punishing God?”

I’ve said that same thing. I grew up in a very “God is Love” church, my parents disdained any hint of fire or fear where God was concerned, so I have for a long time been baffled by my own ideas about God.

But Karr’s spiritual director responds to her saying this: “We often strap onto God the mask of whoever hurt us as children. If you’ve been neglected, God seems cold; if you’ve been bullied, he’s a tyrant. If you’re filled with self-hatred, then God is a monster making inventor.”

Bingo! My fear of God wasn’t of any God I was taught about in Church or Sunday school, but I did dress up God in the garb of my unpredictable speed-addicted mother and my kindly, well-intentioned but un-protecting father. Even as they swore that God loved me, my God was dressed in their behaviors toward me.

Now the task is to undress my God. And maybe pick Him a new role model from my loving, caring recovery community.

More Mary Karr

I’m re-reading the wonderful new memoir, Lit, by Mary Karr. Also celebrating her recent nomination for a National Book Award. Today I realized that here is God and recovery at work in the world: Karr is a sensational poet and with the nomination and awards she is receiving for “Lit” many people will read the book on that basis alone. Many people who don’t think they need to know anything about recovery or addiction or alcoholism or being an adult child of an alcoholic will read her book and they will love it for the sheer beauty, the poetic language, the laugh out loud gut-busting humor and the sensational storytelling. And while that is happening they will get a view of how a 12-step program can change and even create a life. And who knows; that new perspective could even save a life someday.