The Recovering by Leslie Jamison review – on giving up booze

This much-touted literary love letter to Alcoholics Anonymous is too moral in its argument for the superiority of the sober

Leslie Jamison’s narrative ode to Alcoholics Anonymous was written during a calm era (the Obama years) when getting sober may have seemed prudent and wise, but it is published, alas, at a time when intoxication is, if not prudent, at least sometimes necessary.

It might have been almost amusing to get sober under Obama, with the sun shining cheerfully every day (but never burning too hot, contained as it then was under the hopeful rubric of a climate agreement with no less glamorous a provenance than Paris). With the Orange Menace raising holy hell, a stiff drink or two before noon is practically de rigueur. Or anyway, sober though you may choose to be, a little sympathy for the intoxicated among us is surely in order with nuclear holocaust and a dozen other rotating global and national crises on the horizon.

Related: ‘Alcoholism continues long after you stop drinking': my 15 years sober

Jean Rhys keeps drinking and writes her best book drunk. John Berryman writes about getting sober and kills himself

Continue reading... April 27, 2018 at 01:30PM