Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions

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Our character is the result of this story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and the process of inventorying breaks down the hidden and destructive personal grammar that we have unwittingly allowed to govern our behaviour. The sad clown is a trope as old as drama; think of Shakespeare’s melancholy fools, with their discarded pearls of wisdom, or the likes of Tony Hancock and Robin Williams, spreading laughter on stage or screen while private pain corroded their lives until it became unbearable. The result is a sort-of coming-of-age tale that takes the reader through his unhappy childhood and awkward adolescence up to the present, intercut with excerpts from his four previous live shows to illustrate various points.

While they can identify themselves as having an addiction, their identity isn’t tied to their addiction. There are some passages that seem slightly self-indulgent, but hey, the author warned us from the beginning about his flaws. This interview with comedian, actor, author, and activist Russell Brand has been a long time in the making and almost didn’t happen — but we’re so glad it did. Addiction is not always about drugs or alcohol or other serious life-threatening affairs, it's about any behaviour we've lost control over, where the response of our unconscious mind takes over, like when I have a bad day and reach for an entire bag of cookies to 'make myself feel better'.It means being willing to accept that we are all mortals flawed and suffering, imperfectly made and trying our best. Actually, I was surprised by just how disarming his honesty was in the book, the level of brutal self-reflection he achieves in his writing here, and clearly in his path to coping with various addictions, was both moving and inspiring.

All too often people try to fall back on their own resources to pull them through, maybe out of pride or fear of being a burden. Rusty you blimey done it again mate, I can't turn me head round without you breaking more barriers between us and a total universal collective consciousness! When she stops speaking she looks at him awestruck, and in that little pause, that on a sheet of paper is 2 tiny spaces, your mind reels with the thoughts that could fill pages. And having dealt with anxiety and depression, I do look for new ways in which to frame my mental health, new techniques to help me cope with my intervals of low mood.A tree doesn’t face the kind of obstacles a highly socialized mammal does, it might get chopped down, or aggressively pruned or have some wire wrapped round it, but no one is going to say it’s too fat or that it’ll never amount to anything. If you’re chugging through life in a job you kind of dislike, a relationship that you are detached from, eating to cope, staring at Facebook, smoking and fruitlessly fantasizing, you can sit glumly on that conveyor belt of unconscious discontent until it deposits you in your grave. But that you find resources, services, programs, support groups and, yes, maybe spirituality (meditation and mindfulness are proven therapeutic tools) to guide you through. This sparks our awareness, as we find that we still relate to them, no matter how far removed we’ve been through our days of active addiction. Tools to help you understand the areas of concern or difficulties and creating structured and effective solutions to counter them.

No, she told me that I had done well by finding something that made being me bearable… To be acknowledged as a person who was in pain and fighting to survive in my own muddled-up and misguided way made me feel optimistic and understood. I like Russell alot,not just because we are both addicts of about all the world has to offer regarding self gratification,but in many others ways being growing up,looking at the world existing in a robotic,brainwashed fathom, to materialism,to all the fakeness of and in this world.It is a fantastic medley of honesty, humor, and compassion with eye opening perspective that invites the reader to observe any patterns of habits in their own behavior that may be unhealthy. but other than that I was really really impressed with how this managed to communicate that it’s OK and it’s Human to make mistakes, to give in to the monkey mind, to choose the wrong ‘program’ to solve our darkest, deepest woes - it’s human to suffer in this way. He applies the 12-steps to a wide variety of the obstacles that might be keeping us from being the person we are meant to be (drugs, alcohol, food, anger, selfishness, depression, etc. If you are even the slightest bit unhappy or dissatisfied with your life and want to make changes but don't know how, I urge you to read this book.