The Comfort Food Diaries

I get caught on this hook over and over. Maybe you do too…or maybe you are a faster learner. But when I see women who are beautiful or smart or super successful, or who have a certain upper-middle class polished look and a lot of poise, I start to think...Well, …it’s actually what I don’t think:

I don’t think: “I wonder if she has ever been arrested?” or “I wonder if she drinks herself into oblivion every night?” Or “I wonder if her biggest secret is an alcohol-infused eating disorder punctuated by depression, anxiety or sex addiction?”

No, rather, I am more likely to think (yes even after 33 years of recovery) “Oh, look at her nice (hair, job, house, resume, poise) I’ll never be like that.” Yep—I am still judging the

books by the covers and comparing my insides to your outsides. Still. (Diane, stop already.)

But then I do stop cold when I pick up this new book, “The Comfort Food Diaries” by Emily Nunn. I look at the back flap first: Lots of good looks and poise and polish, and a writer-envy resume: A decade at The New Yorker, her own column, features reporter for the Chicago Tribune. And she’s writing about grief—the subtitle is “My Quest for the Perfect Dish to Mend a Broken Heart.”

And then I start to read, and my book-cover judgment falls away. Emily Nunn has been everywhere you’d expect from a successful well-educated journalist, and then some. Turns out that she’s been to hell and back, and to Betty Ford in-between. She’s been an alcoholic, relationship crazy, clinically depressed, heartbreakingly devastated by her brother’s death and then loss of her fiancé and that meant that he also took his young daughter who was so important to Emily. 

Envy gone, jealousy vanished. Sisterhood in full force.

It’s a great book and a surprising story. And one of the cool things is that she includes recipes. Emily can cook and she cooked her way thru addiction and cooked her way out—and she cooked her way around the country—depending on the kindness of loved ones and friends who cared for her while she cried and cooked and healed. 

This is a travel book and a food history and a story of one woman’s heartbreaking breakdown and her (literally) recipe for putting a life back together. And yes, the writing is kick-ass good because, she was, after all, a writer for the New Yorker, and that’s not nothing.

Is Abstinence the Only Way?

This is one of those questions that can be troublesome for those of us who love AA and who have benefitted from an "abstinence-only" approach to sobriety or recovery or changing our drinking. Even those words are phrases are fraught with implication --and sometimes ownership.

In today's New York Times there is a provocative article by Gabrielle Glaser, author of "Her Best Kept Secret--Why Women Drink". Glaser's book is an excellent account of women's drinking patterns and the increase in women's use and misuse of alcohol. She looks at lifestyle changes, marketing, and the humor and beliefs around alcohol use among women.

However she is shaking up the AA world by describing it's history: very male, and it's approaches: religious or spiritually based. None of that is new to us. But what's got recovering people twitching is her bold statement that AA is not the only way. And she is challenging the medical and psychiatric community to think about all of the possible interventions and methods including medication, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Moderation Management and others.

This is one of those places where you have a nice litmus test of your own recovery and your confidence in your recovery. Does the idea that other alcoholics can still drink bother you? Does the idea that other people can benefit from other approaches make you doubt your program? Does any criticism of AA or Twelve Step programs give you a giant resentment? Then think again.

One of the smart--though provocative--things that Glaser says at the very end of today's article is this: "We don't treat cancer, depression or asthma with the same tools we used in 1935. We need to get away from the one-size-fits-all approach to drinking problems."

I think she is right. AA is not the only way. We should learn all we can about addiction and methods of treatment. As for me, I'm grateful that AA recovery worked for me and that I have made this choice. I only wish for others who struggle with addiction that they can find whatever will work for them. And we can welcome them to sobriety and good health whichever route they take.

Here is the link to Glaser's article in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/opinion/cold-turkey-isnt-the-only-route.html?smid=pl-share

Her Best Kept Secret--Is AA the Only Way?

Is AA the only way for women to recover? Does recovery have to mean total abstinence? Are there aspects of AA that are harmful to women?

Those are some of the challenging questions in the new book by Gabrielle Glaser called: “Her Best-Kept Secret” and subtitled: “Why women drink and how they can regain control.”

Now maybe, like me, you immediately recognize that word “control” as a red flag. I went right to, “Whoa, wait a minute, recovery is not about getting control; its about giving up control.” And yes that’s some of the philosophy we have absorbed from participation in AA. But let’s remember that if we are active in AA we are, in fact, participating in a strict program that has a strong and specific philosophy.

This is a provocative and challenging book and I think, it’s a very good book. My caveat—though this would infuriate the author, is that I wouldn’t recommend this to a newcomer in AA—especially if they are starting to do well in the program. The book is to some degree anti-AA in that it discloses some of the flawed thinking inherent to the early program, some of our outrageously sexist history and some of our, “my way or you’ll die” single-mindedness.

If you are around and in recovery for along time you do come to meet enough people who have stopped drinking or eating or using drugs via methods and programs that are not twelve-step based. I am thrilled and grateful that twelve-step recovery worked for me and I always recommend it, but I no longer shame people who try other approaches or who change their addictions in other ways. I’m glad when people change their lives for the good whether they do it with AA, in their faith community, with the help of loving family and friends, or with direct medical assistance. That said, I am also an AA booster. A contradiction? Oh well.

The very good part of this book and why I do recommend this for folks in recovery is that Glaser has done her medical, historical and sociological homework. I was fascinated by how the wine industry moved table wine from a product few women would drink or serve at home in the 1940’s and 50’s to the drink that comes with socializing, cultish education and is the center piece of Mommy blogs. Ladies, we were targeted, shaped, persuaded and made into wine drinkers. Grab this book and read the chapters on wine and marketing to see again the power of Madison Avenue. Do you think learning about wine or having a taste for particular kinds of wine is all about you as an individual? Not so much. She also documents the increase in women’s drinking over the past two decades in all demographic categories. Alcohol consumption—addictive or not—is a women’s issue of great concern

Glaser is a good writer and a fierce fighter. As I read the book I had the sense that one too many friend tried to push her toward AA or she watched a friend disappear into what felt like our cultishness—and it can seem that way to someone outside our program. She’s pissed. But I strongly recommend this book to people in long-term recovery because we can stand to learn some of our own history and we can dissect the marketing and the romancing of early AA.

The best gift of a long recovery is the reclaiming of our own minds and intelligence and being able to tolerate feedback and criticism—whether directed at us or our beloved program.

Take a Deep Breath and Read This Article

Women in recovery and women and alcohol and Moms Who Need Wine. Here is an article that we are going to have to talk about. The link below is to a feature article in Sunday's Wall Street Journal about women who drink--and drink too much. There is a lot of good info here on demographic and behavioral trends, and there is great info on metabolism and physiology and there is some upsetting info about AA.

As I read this article I was nodding along until I got to the part about AA and them I thought, "Oh dam..here we go." Not that the author is wrong in any way--yes indeed there is Thirteenth Stepping and there are felons and criminal in AA. We know that. We just don't--for the most part--focus on that. So it's very uncomfortable to read about the less than perfect side of AA. The old saying is quite accurate: "We are not saints."

That is no excuse for tolerating the mistreatment of newcomers or untoward behavior by anyone in or near our rooms, but this article is also a litmus test for the balance of your recovery. It's also a mini test of how monolithic your belief needs to be. When you have been around recovery a while you slowly learn that while AA may be your answer and my answer it is not everybody's answer and that just is OK. People get sober or modify their drinking with help from medication, meditation, church and God and strong family networks and many other sources of support. It's all OK.

Here's the article. Take a look. Talk about it with other recovering women.

More will be revealed.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893504578555270434071876.html