Questions for an <em>UNWASTED</em> Author

In the past few days we interrogated former TNR Editor Sacha Scoblic about her newly released memoir UNWASTED: A Lush Sobriety, a book about being wasted and getting unwasted in Washington. She writes at length about her failed quest to become like Hunter S. Thompson. She tells it better than we ever could. Read on. What was it like to write this book? Exhilarating. When I first started contributing to the “Proof” blog at The New York Times, I had never before written so openly about my sobriety, and it felt like exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Then of course it immediately became difficult, both literally—squeezing in writing sessions around work—and emotionally. A lot of the material was hiding in secret mental spaces that I had been previously hesitant to explore. Putting my worst moments, most entitled moments, most sketchy moments, most ego-driven moments on paper was wrenching. But what I have learned from 12-step programs is that I’m not unique, that many people will recognize my sentiments and stories, and that a lot of folks will see their own lives mirrored in mine. That thought always comforted me as I wrote. When you worked at TNR, did your bosses and colleagues know you had a problem? Some yes, some no. I was a pretty high-functioning alcoholic and after-work drinker, so I think the majority of people didn’t see me as having a problem. And, like many alcoholics, I was excellent at hiding it. After all, I showed up; I did my job. Still, everyone at TNR knew for sure that I was partier, a good-time Sally. I don’t think there was any secret about that. But those few special people who were more than colleagues, who were close friends, they absolutely knew there was a much deeper issue. And several of them attempted to talk to me about it. In a way, it was like an intervention by a thousand nudges rather than some organized showdown. Because every time someone told me his or her concerns, it broke down a little piece of my boozy armor. What books on addiction do you most admire or flat out enjoyed reading? I have actually assiduously avoided addicted memoirs—junkie lit—and memoirs in general for a long time (Scandal! I didn’t even read Eat, Pray, Love! Will the memoir gods revoke my license?). I never wanted to be influenced or have the inevitable realization that I was about to write the same thought as someone else and thereby find myself creatively restricted. Having said that, I did read Steve Geng’s Thick As Thieves, a searing, hard-core addiction memoir not for the faint of heart that also chronicles his poignant relationship with his successful older sister, who wrote for The New Yorker and died too young. Finally, I just can’t say enough about Sam Lipsyte’s novel Home Land. It is the flat-out funniest novel I have ever read. It’s only indirectly about addiction, but man, when he goes there, it’s fucking brilliant. Find out how Sacha made many amends in the course of writing the book... Who are your favorite authors generally? I love Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, S.E. Hinton, Tana French, Charles Bock—and many, many others. Did you make amends to anyone in the course of writing this book? Yes. I let most of the people featured in the book read their sections before I ever turned them in to my publisher. It was perhaps the scariest thing I have ever done. The friend I ended up making a direct amends to was horrified by what I had written—not because it was untrue, but because I had viewed our entire relationship through the lens of booze. Every memory I conjured was related to excess. He, on the other hand, had memories of me as a great friend—not a great friend he drank with, not a great friend he partied with—just a great friend. But that’s what an alcoholic I am. I did view our relationship differently than he did. That was a huge and heartbreaking epiphany. Luckily, I had the opportunity to apologize for that and a raft of other shitty things I did. He’s an exceptional person, and I am glad we are tip-toeing our way back to one another. Why does journalism attract alcoholics, or is it every profession? Oh, it’s every profession—journalists just, well, write about it and navel-gaze about it more. Guilty! I’m sure you can find a gaggle of lawyers in the city right now who think it’s their profession that really attracts alcoholics—or a gaggle of musicians or artists or restaurant employees or hairdressers. But no one profession has a unique relationship to addiction. Right now there is a librarian quietly drinking herself to sleep or a teacher trying not to let his students see his hands shake. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. Is it harder to be sober in D.C. than in other cities? It’s tempting to say yes because of the sometimes-endless cocktail parties and schmooze-fests D.C. tends to specialize in. But, in truth, it’s hard in every city, because drinking is so ingrained in our culture. We meet for drinks, we celebrate with drinks, we congratulate with drinks, we reminisce over drinks, we grieve over drinks, we fetishize cocktail lounges, we have favorite dive bars, we can’t eat a taco without a cold Corona, we can’t have a cigar without a scotch, and so on and on and on. Did you have alternative titles for the book? Yes, it was originally called My Fantasy Relapse; I depict all the crazy fantasies I had in early sobriety in the book—grandiose situations where it would be OK to drink because I was forced to or because the world depended on it. But ultimately that title focused on the perils of sobriety instead of its triumphs—and there are far more of those. Born, raised, schooling…I am an upstate New Yorker raised in Syracuse (go Orange!). I started college at Columbia and, thanks in large part to my drinking, I finished my last year at Binghamton University. I went back to ‘Cuse for a master’s in magazine journalism from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Communications after a misdirected year of law school at Georgetown. I’ve lived in D.C. for 13 years. Why did you want to be a journalist? Mostly because I thought I could live like Hunter S. Thompson. I thought my lifestyle could fuel my writing. It didn’t. Unlike Thompson, I would get loaded and forget to write because I was too busy dancing on my own living room table and then I’d wake up hung-over and decide I needed to spend the day recuperating by watching television. But, Hunter—ah, that was the dream, baby. Also, I dropped out of law school at Georgetown and had to do something. Do you fear relapsing? Yes. The moment I stop fearing it is the moment I will also think I can control my drinking. And let me tell you something I know for sure: I can’t control it. Relapse is often a normal part of recovery. I have not relapsed and hope I don’t relapse; I try to live a life of honesty and sober support so that I never will. Luckily, as my sober life just gets better and better, temptations are fewer and fewer. But I still fear it, definitely.

Fishbowl

Questions for an UNWASTED Author

Betsy Rothstein

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Betsy Rothstein