KATHLEEN: It is clear that your writing is from an intelligent and passionate person. Your essay on getting and staying sober was poignant, sincere, and completely pathetic ["Now You Don't 'Cause You Can't," Kathleen Wilson, Jan 3]. An honest, muddy look at your alcohol-soaked past. I can't seem to figure out what your motivation for writing it was.
Was it to let the struggling alcoholics who sit next to you at the bar know they are not alone? Or was it a love letter, a last attempt to reclaim the attention of the one that got away? Kathleen, do you have any dirty laundry left to hang out in front of us music-goers, Stranger readers who aren't necessarily interested in what one of the harshest, most self-promoting writers in town has to say about her struggles? Why not save these memoirs for five years down the road, when you are ready to publish a book? Why print your deepest secrets in a weekly paper, the place of your employment?
The Stranger should have never printed this, simply because it is too soon, perspective eludes you still, and I believe it was written for the wrong reasons. I wish you luck.
Anonymous, via e-mail
DEAR KATHLEEN: Thank you for the openness, honesty, and humor you used in addressing the drinking problem that you have had since [you were] an adolescent. Your article made me tear up with sadness, but also with relief that you have come to such a good place. Good luck with living in the most prosperous way that you can, and remember that there are many people out there who empathize and are sending out their supportive energy.
Shannon, via e-mail
TO KATHLEEN: What an article. I have read a lot of your stuff over the years, band reviews, movie reviews, and regular reporter/articles stuff. I haven't always agreed, but I have always respected you. You are tough, and you fight. There is nothing that helps in life more than fighting, and I think that if you continue on your current course, the rest of your life is going to turn out simply fabulous. Congrats on your new life.
Anonymous, via e-mail
EDITORS: I just read Kathleen Wilson's latest article and although tempted to say something meaningful like, "Wilson gives us an eye-opening insight into the less glamorous and perhaps under-explored mind and world of the former alcoholic," I'm really responding because it is one of the few things I've seen in this paper that has actually made me emotionally connect with the writer. I found myself visualizing her trying to climb out of that bathroom window and relating to the feelings and experiences she describes. One of the best articles I've read in here. Very well done!
Jonathan, via e-mail
EDITORS: Kathleen Wilson's article on the journey through soul annihilation--in this case alcoholism--was well done and written from the gut. Takes courage, which is required also to pull out of the hole.
Two thoughts, however: Rehab(s) that say Antabuse is a crutch ought to be torched and the counselors feathered; Antabuse is a powerful tool.
Also, Kathleen, if you are an alcoholic in recovery, stay the hell out of bars. The adage, "If you hang out in a barbershop long enough, you'll get a haircut" applies. I really want to burn that rehab....
Fellow survivor Jim Russell, Olympia
DEAR KATHLEEN: Two years ago I went through a struggle with my drinking; however, I found a number of problems with AA. One is that in some ways AA can be cultish. The other was having men in AA trying to "13 step" me. I found a new approach in a concept called Addictive Voice Recognition Technique. AVRT teaches us that we are NOT powerless over booze, and that the reason people drink is to get pleasure. Wanting pleasure is a natural human trait. The ability to stop drinking forever is also a natural human ability. The desire to drink is not an illness. Drinking is a choice. In October of 1999, I just quit. I am now a teetotaler. All you need to do to recover is to stop. There is no such thing as a "dry drunk." One step is all that is required. Whatever works is good, and there are no rules for getting sober.
For more information, go to www.rationalrecovery.com. Good luck to you.
Jill Hanson, via e-mail
DEAR MS. WILSON: Thank you so very much for your story "Now You Don't 'Cause You Can't." As a fellow writer and someone who drank their way through two continents, many relationships, many friendships, and almost their life before turning 21, in your story I recognized great bravery, great courage in what you were writing. From the social anxiety--and now, after three years of sobriety, it doesn't get any easier, but I've figured out that you can be just as obnoxious and people will leave you alone, instead of blaming the booze--to the hideous nature of drinking dreams, you have summed up exactly what it's like to try and survive sober. Thank you very, very much.
Geoff Parkes, via e-mail
EDITORS: I only know Ms. Wilson through her "writings," and I've hated nearly every one of them. She is from the school of journalism that is more interested in the writer than the subject. But what was especially galling was that in this two-horse town, she was in a position of something like power over hard-working bands, whose efforts were dismissed with a curl of her lip and a stab of her noxious pen.
Reading "Now You Don't 'Cause You Can't" has resulted in one of those "if you'd have told me a year ago..." moments, whereby I'm writing to thank her. For a good article. And to commend her for taking what is definitely not the easy route. As a fellow drunk, and a musician, I found it necessary to break up [my] band and basically stay away from bars and clubs (and even my own stereo). I know I wouldn't have been able to [get sober] otherwise. And after nearly a year, I too have a list of the pros and cons of sobriety. But probably the biggest windfall was a new way of inhabiting space on the planet, and my relation to those I share it with. To see that mirrored in an article by someone I'd previously loathed (based on my one-dimensional reasoning)--well, you get the point. Thanks.
