I was looking for help when I discovered this article.
I am frightened by the "NO" I feel whenever I have sex, or when my partner wants to. I was always "YES, YES, YES," and always stoned when I went to bed at night. For many years I have "YES'd" myself through relationships and I don't recognize my clean self in my clean bed.
I wondered if sex triggered my wanting to use, and I think it does.
What gave me hope in reading "Clean" was the happy ending, and the "voice" which I recognized as the voice in my head: repeating, repeating, repeating. I so need to know that I am not alone. That things will get better.
Thank you, James.
--LM
11/15 |
what can i say..your freaken terrific..loved it!
--js
06/19 |
awesome. you write so very well. i liked the repetition throughout. very effective. reminded me without seeming intrusive or overdone.
i felt you conveyed your agony over it all so very well.
thanks for sharing yourself like this
--
06/14 |
James...loved the book and loved this essay!
--do
06/12 |
Fantastic writer!!!!!!!!!! He should write more
--UP
06/12 |
Aw, James...that is f'ing GREAT! It's so true!
--CL
06/08 |
Beautiful.
--RM
06/08 |
Great story. And so far very indicative of my experience in sobriety. I'm hoping for the same happy ending.
--cpl
06/03 |
Brilliant and increasingly poignant in these modern times.
--PK
06/02 |
Fantastic. I think so many of us have been there, maybe without realizing it. At least shutting down in fear, if not to the same extreme. I know I have.
Finally someone writes about life after drugs being as ridiculous and exasperating as it really is. Before it gets better.
--ab
06/01 |
Terrific story - like the style.
--SS
05/31 |
GREAT, well written and SINCERE-- that's the best part.
--NK
05/29 |
Wow........yeah, that's all I got.......Wow.
--cll
05/29 |
sometimes when people get together, there is this absence of intimacy. there's the sex, but it's so flash in the pan that the intricate conversion between he and she gets panned over.
this story made me want to not just bang and gasp and lie in sweat, it made me want to feel intimate. close. real. the actual amount of time spent horizontal lost because there's just us. without the fluff of a porno long gone, I wanted this for real.
thank you for your tale.
--br
05/29 |
Beautiful and poignent. It brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing. Peace.
--JR
05/28 |
Alcohol is a well known "pain killer"! It is also a pleasure killer. I am 18 years sober.
Part of my story: One day after 10 consecutive vodka martinis on a plane and dinner I found that at the appropriate moment I could not feel my orgasm. Of course that didn't stop me from drinking, it just added to the list of planned drinking. After all, don't we learn, "first things first"?
--AHS
05/28 |
I'm clean now, female, and running. I've had a couple of one night stands, no names, no faces, but "no erection" on my part. The only thing I've felt is the urge to take off when it was all over. I want it, but to open that door and let someone in again...I don't know. The idea that someone, somewhere, might have the patience to care enough to bring me back to life is just making me sob. Thank you.
--CS
05/28 |
As a writer, both by trade and by hobby, I can honestly say that this was one of the most passionate works I've ever come across. And for you slow people out there, passion does not always mean sex, though there was a lot of that in here too. Big Smile. All things said and done, this shit was tight!
--DJT
05/28 |
Oh, WAH. Thank god it was so short. So to speak.
--AM
05/28 |
I am thankful for such candid sharing. It helped me in just the way that i need.
--EQ
05/28 |
remarkably touching, very visual, intensely human piece of writing. i absolutely enjoyed reading Clean.
--ab
05/28 |
indeed. women tend to respond with some combination of confusion and frustration with a pinch of hurt feelings. what they tend not to understand is that its a confidence game and there is a beautiful opportunity to draw a man out, so to speak, to relieve him of the pressure to perform and take him in hand. these are sweet and bonding moments properly executed.
--ydb
05/28 |
delightfully honest, raw essay. i think most men have had the experience of losing an erection and being hit with a sledgehammer of shame while doing so, which of course reduces your rod to a little viena sausage in seconds. it's a classic vicious / virtual circle trap. i had a nonstop erection about 23 hours per day in my late teens but couldn't get it up the first several times i tried to lose my virginity with a caring girlfriend. to this day i get harder when i am drunk, despite alocohol's counterproductive effects, and its simply because it silences the secondary and tertiary messages in my head.
--jbj
05/28 |
nice
--xtal
05/28 |
beautiful writing, like someone etching rhythms onto a drum- painful courageous hopeful panicked blooming joyous thunderous rhythms! Thank you!
--Kat
05/28 |
Wow. That was a an eye-opening piece. Not that I had never heard or thought of these kind of issues but rather that it was well written and made me feel empathy. I am female so on the phsyical plane that seems odd, but the emotional plane is the same in many ways. I'm glad that the last woman mentioned knew how to try to work around the situation, most people aren't that in touch with others feelings.
Thank you
--NKL
05/28 |
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