We Should All Go to Rehab!

I am still swimming in the middle of David Carr's "Night of the Gun."  It is amazing, and a little daunting to behold how much degradation one human being is willing to endure to pursue an addiction. There are many levels of degradation. Sort of like Dante's levels of hell.

There are some events that I can relate to, some of the mindless craziness. I think back on some of my risky, crazy days, but my risky and crazy is really many levels up from the abyss that Carr explores and sinks into. By the end of his years of hell, he is shooting cocaine with a determined relish.

Carr was in and out of rehab 5 times. Finally the 5th time stuck. What's kind of interesting, a lot of what Carr writes about in rehab reminds me of scenes from David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest." Even some of the characters sketched by Carr resemble characters sketched by Wallace. Maybe there is a sameness about rehab that every one experiences?

And just like in Foster's book, I kind of get the idea from Carr that maybe we all should be in rehab. We are all addicts of one thing or another. And we do need those simple, AA aphorisms that people make fun of, but then base their new lives of sobriety on...

One Day at A Time.
Nothing is Fair
It Is What It Is