I’m sure to have questions about why I’m reading Sacha Scoblic‘s Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety. The answer is that I saw an essay Scoblic wrote around the time of Amy Winehouse’s death, on sobriety and the false notion that art somehow justifies (or requires) addiction. (See, Amy Winehouse: The Insidious Response to Her Addiction and Death.) She wrote well and persuasively. I made note of her book, and now I’m reading it.
I offer no claim to a special understanding of alcoholics, recovering alcoholics, or afflicted artists. Yet, having met people who are those things, one sees the great gap between policies that address substances, and other policies that treat addicts.
We talk less about alcoholics than we do about alcohol, yet it must be addiction that matters. I’m curious to see what Scoblic has to say, of her experiences, both drunk and sober.
That’s why I’m reading her book.