Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher
Addiction psychiatrist and bioethicist Carl Erik Fisher explores addiction and recovery from the widest possible diversity of perspectives: from science to spirituality, from philosophy to politics, and everything in between. He interviews leading experts in areas such as psychology, neurobiology, history, sociology, and more--as well as policy makers, advocates, and people with lived experience.
A core commitment of the show is we need more than medicine to truly understand addiction and recovery. The challenges and mysteries of this field run up against some of the central challenges of human life, like: what makes a life worth living, what are the limits of self control, and how can people and societies change for the better? These are enormous questions, and they need to be approached with humility, but there are also promising ways forward offered by refreshingly unexpected sources.
There are many paths to recovery, and there is tremendous hope for changing the narrative, injecting more nuance into these discussions, and making flourishing in recovery possible for all.
Please check out https://www.carlerikfisher.com to join the newsletter and stay in touch.
Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher
Brutalities: Exercise, Extremity, and Love , with Margo Steines
In the latest episode of Flourishing After Addiction, I am thrilled to be exploring the intricate relationships between addiction, recovery, pain, and embodiment with Margo Steines, a writer and person in recovery with a deep understanding of these themes.
Margo Steines holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona and serves as a faculty member in their acclaimed writing program. Her work, including her memoir-in-essays "Brutalities: A Love Story," offers a truly unique view into diverse experiences of addiction, including substance problems, self-harm, risky sex, eating disorder, and what is unquestionably the most captivating literary portrayal of exercise addiction I have ever read.
I was so happy to encounter Brutalities a short while ago. It’s a bold exploration of intensity, extremity, and physicality. It’s a cautionary tale of the thin line between discipline and compulsion. In the end, it’s an inspiring story of one person’s path toward a more balanced and healthy embodiment, including the impossible task of becoming a parent.
If that weren’t enough, we also talk about relationships, orthorexia, chronic illness, sex, sex work, and money. Margo walks us through her current recovery practices and the edges she’s navigating today. Finally, of course, we talk craft, including writing from and about pain.
Margo Steines holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona, where she is faculty in the Writing Program. Her work was named Notable in Best American Essays and has appeared in The Sun, Slate, Brevity, Off Assignment, The New York Times (Modern Love), the anthology Letter to a Stranger, and elsewhere. She is the author of the memoir-in-essays Brutalities. Margo is a born-and-raised New Yorker, a journeyman ironworker, and serves as mom to a small person. She is also a private creative coach and writing class facilitator. She can be found at her website, Twitter, and Instagram.
In this episode:
-her book: Brutalities
-Margo’s “Write your story” class
-Margo’s other classes
-Leslie Jamison
-Marya Hornbacher
-Jerry Stahl
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