The Babstinence Podcast: a Rare Perspective in Addiction/Recovery
“Quitting on your own” is the most common method of quitting anything — before we find a program or system or whatever, everyone tries to quit on our own first. No matter if it is a behavioral or addictive issue, the path of least resistance is to simply walk away or make a new resolution. What is rare is a diary of such an attempt; usually what we see is “ quitting on my own was a failure— here’s what finally worked.”
Comedian Babs Gray chronicles a year in her life without drinking with a new podcast called Babstinence. What I really like about it is that she is not condemning any other method or perspective on alcoholism, nor is she convinced that she is an alcoholic in the broad cultural sense of the word. Babs has simply gotten to the point in which she wants to stop and compare her life without drinking to her life with drinking. It’s brutally honest, with a whole spectrum of emotions — Babs will as soon make jokes about an incident as she will cry. This approach is also rare.
I have 20 years in a 12-step program. I am an alcoholic and drug addict who spent 15 years self-medicating two psychiatric conditions. I tried first to manage my usage, and after that failed repeatedly, I did quit on my own for a few weeks. But to cut to the point, I soon realized that I needed outside help, and as I could not…
