Tim Elhajj about Writing and Publishing His Memoir

by Jerry Waxler

This is the third and final part of my interview with Tim Elhajj, author of the memoir Dopefiend. In the first part of the interview, we discuss shame, self-acceptance, and anonymity. In the third part, we will talk about writing and publishing. In Part Two, we take a fresh look at writing about the Twelve Steps. In this part of the interview, Elhajj talks about writing the book and publishing it.

Jerry Waxler:  You published the book through a publisher. These days, the whole writing community is buzzing about the potential for self-publishing. Help me understand your decision. Why did you choose to go with a publisher? How long and hard was the journey to find an agent or editor?

Tim Elhajj: I wasn’t sure I wanted to self-publish my first book. I created a proposal that included a chapter-by-chapter synopsis and the first three chapters and then sent it around to a short list of publishers and agents. I targeted publishers and agents that had worked with stories similar to mine within the previous year. I’m glad I did it the way I did, but I wouldn’t be so averse to self-publishing for my next project. It’s really not that hard, especially if you have a background as a writer and are comfortable with the technical requirements of pulling the manuscript together.

Jerry Waxler:  Over my years of researching the publishing industry, I have developed various fantasies and fears. In one fantasy, a team of expert editors would transform my raw manuscript into a world class work of literature. In a second version of this fantasy, the publisher doesn’t edit it at all, leaving all my mistakes exposed to the world. In a third scenario, the editor seizes control over voice and pacing and completely distorts my message. So how does your actual experience fit these extreme examples?

Tim Elhajj: The publishing industry has some odd conventions. I had to learn to stand up for myself with what I wanted for the story. I had to do the job I imagine a good agent would do for a writer. Really had to advocate for myself, for what I wanted from my story. I feel like I did a pretty good job for a first time author with no agent. I got 99% of what I wanted. But I’ll tell you this-I wouldn’t work with a publisher again without an agent. I’d rather write, then deal with that end of the business. It’s exhausting work.

Jerry Waxler: You did a great job of telling an excellent story. How did you prepare for this task? I note that you are a technical writer and that you went to a liberal arts college, Hunter. With this diverse writing background, what was your learning curve like when you attempted to turn your life into a story? Was it hard to learn the memoir writing voice?

Tim Elhajj: My blog was a huge help finding a voice that I am comfortable with. I have a very modest readership, but it’s not about the hits or raw numbers. It’s about finding a way to get comfortable with the work, a way to put it out there.

Jerry Waxler: I love the sparseness of your writing style. With simple anecdotes and scenes, you are able to develop a complex, complete story. Out of all the twists and turns of your life, how did you manage to select just the scenes that worked?

Tim Elhajj: Most of the anecdotes in the book were ones that I tell in AA meetings or around the dinner table to entertain my kids. Telling a story doesn’t always work the same way as writing a story. You have to make certain adjustments for the page. The audience is potentially different and some things may need more explanation, or transitions to get it to all make sense, but it all came out of that one big insight that I discussed earlier, about my relationship to my son and the program. That was the key to the rest of the book.

Jerry Waxler: You introduce a walk-on character who is not really there. He is like an apparition, or hallucination of one of your old drug buddies, and serves as a grim reminder of the life you could have been stuck in. The technique added dramatic power. However, it created a slight disturbance in my reading mind. I murmured to myself, not in a bad way, “Wait, what is that? Is it a literary device? A hallucination?”

Using this visionary element opens the door to the memoir author’s fantasy world, which I think could provide additional rich material for a memoir. (William Manchester uses a similar device in his memoir “Goodbye Darkness” in which he is haunted by the demons of his past.)  What can you tell about your decision to use that particular character in the story?

Tim Elhajj: You’re speaking of Chopper Cassidy. I changed the name, but this character is modeled from the first young man I knew who had died of a drug overdose. I must have been about fifteen or sixteen at the time.

I wanted to give the reader a sense for the weight of my past indiscretions and poor choices. Most writers of recovery memoirs can just show what their active addiction was like, but I had a very specific structure in mind for the book, so I needed to do something different. I wanted something tangible and big. I had read and admired Shalom Auslander’s Foreskin’s Lament and he does something similar to give the reader a sense for the weight of his religious upbringing by Orthodox Jewish parents.

This is one of the parts of the book that I had to fight with the publisher to keep. I am so glad you liked it, and that you understood what I was trying to achieve. It is a little disconcerting to see something like this in memoir, but I feel like it’s okay to push boundaries. Take risks. Experiment.

Jerry Waxler: I first met you in an online critique group. You were submitting pieces of the memoir to the group. Apparently it helped you polish your work. Please tell us more about the value of the critiquing process in your development as a writer, and in the development of this particular book.

Tim Elhajj: I’ve really fallen into a comfortable groove with my writing group. What’s most beneficial to me is that act of looking at others work. I have to learned to quickly identify the one or two things that I think will most improve the work, so that I can respond to the group and keep my membership active. This has allowed me to develop a finer sense for evaluating and revising my own work. And, of course, I also benefit from the feedback I get from the others. I have the good fortune to have many fine writers-like yourself, Jerry!-looking and commenting on my work.

Jerry Waxler:  One problem with critique groups is that they generally only give feedback about short sections at a time. It’s harder to find readers who will review the whole book. How did you overcome that challenge? Did you have many readers? Were you part of a group? Anything else you can share about reviewing the book while you were writing it?

Tim Elhajj: I have my wife who reads my longer manuscripts and offers incredibly helpful reviews. Sometimes you really do need someone to look at the work in the context its meant to have as a final manuscript. But it’s also helpful to get buy in on scenes, synopsis, and big ideas. When a book goes from idea to actual chapters-when the writing takes off and starts to move to its own cadence-then I like to narrow my feedback to one or two people who have a sense for what I’m trying to achieve.

Jerry Waxler:  When I write or edit my memoir, my creative attention forces me to integrate forgotten or discarded parts, and so on. Over time, this introspective work has made me more confident about my life. How would you describe the impact that memoir writing has had on you? [an anecdote would be awesome]

Tim Elhajj: I would say my writing keeps me in my office until all hours of the night. It’s hard work, but I love it. Wouldn’t have it any other way. I am sort of a loner anyhow. If I weren’t writing, I might just be staring out the window, thinking. Much better to write it all down. Try to make an entertaining story. My writing helps me to connect with people-readers. It’s an important outlet that I wouldn’t have without the writing. I’d like to think I’d still be a thoughtful person, but my life would be a little poorer without the potential for readers.

Notes
Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon
Click here to read eight lessons you can learn from Dopefiend

For brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Memoir Interview: A Fresh, Personal Look at Twelve Steps

by Jerry Waxler

This is the second part of my interview with memoir author Tim Elhajj about his memoir, “Dopefiend: A Father’s Journey from Addiction to Redemption,” in which he portrays his recovery from heroin addiction in the Twelve Step program. Dopefiend provides a fresh, authentic look at this subject, which has been written about in many other books. It’s a question that arises for many memoir writers: “How do I portray my own individual perspective on a topic that has already received wide coverage?”

In the first part of the interview, we discuss shame, self-acceptance, and anonymity. In the third part, we will talk about writing and publishing. In the third part of the interview, Elhajj talks about writing the book and publishing it.

Jerry Waxler: Dope Fiend is a wonderful insight into the Twelve Steps, for several reasons. Probably at the top of my list is your relationship with your sponsor. He seems to be like a guardian angel. I am fascinated by the great relationship you developed with him. The way I read this relationship, the man himself was somewhat distant and insc`-rutable. I guess that’s a good thing, because it wasn’t about him. His main act seemed to be to ask you if your actions matched your basic principles. Perfect.

I wonder if you could comment on the way you included your sponsor, who was clearly made a crucial contribution to your journey. What decisions did you make about portraying him? Did you feel you needed to protect him, or hide him, because of his privacy and anonymity? Any light you can shed on your portrayal of his character would be interesting.

Tim Elhajj: My sponsor was a huge factor in my success. I wanted to show the reader how that relationship worked for me, but I didn’t want to lose sight of the bigger story, the story about my relationship with my son. I think in some ways my relationship with my sponsor echoes the parental relationship I was trying to build with my son. My sponsor’s willingness to express his love for me is a nice foil for those first few hesitant steps I took reaching out to my son, offering him small praise or just the time required to pass a baseball back and forth. My sponsor was an important and necessary part of the story, but I also wanted him to be somewhat anonymous, to fall out of the story after his appearance on stage. This is what twelve step fellowships are about–part of the wonder of how these programs work is that people from all different walks are thrust together in common cause, recovery. It’s transitory by nature. To protect his privacy, I changed my sponsor’s name, as I did with most everyone’s name. Only my wife and I have our real names used in the book.

Jerry Waxler:  The Higher Power often presents a big obstacle for people who first try to embrace the Twelve Steps. And yet, it is a fundamental part of the program. In her memoir, “Lit’ Mary Karr spends a lot of time worrying about whether to accept a Higher Power. “Is there really a God? Am I really praying?” In your memoir, you did not express or seem to feel any reluctance about this aspect of the Twelve Steps, and if you fretted about it at all, it was so brief and mild, I missed it. Your acceptance of these principles turned the book, into a subtle, understated ode to spirituality.

That’s my perception. Tell me about your intentions. Did you intentionally downplay your internal debate about Higher Power, or did you simply absorb and accept that part of the teaching? During the creation of the memoir, what sort of decisions did you make about how to portray this aspect?

Tim Elhajj: I have always believed in God, but I have also always been somewhat cynical about the practical value of this belief. I am especially skeptical about religion. Spirituality, though, seems a bit different to me. At least, the type of spirituality I have learned by practicing the steps. If I can develop enough faith in myself, the courage to move forward despite my own fears–concrete ways to practice these and all the spiritual values embodied in the steps–then I am capable of making great changes in the way I live my life. To me, it’s all very practical. And, I would say, very spiritual, too.

Jerry Waxler:  I saw that you offer group discussion topics. What sorts of groups have you found interested in working with these questions?

Tim Elhajj: I think you are talking about the reading guide posts I’m publishing on the blog for Dopefiend. Each month, I write a short post that explores some aspect of the spiritual value assigned to one of the chapters or a meditation on the step associated with the value. I try to tie the action of the chapter into the value used in each of the chapter headings, as well as some thoughtful questions for the reader. I try not to add any spoilers, so feel free to read them over, even if you haven’t read the book.

I plan to do reading guide for all twelve chapters. I’m about to post the one for chapter four any day now. I hope they encourage people to buy the book, or at the very least consider the questions. I’d invite everyone to check it out: http://dopefiend.telhajj.com/category/reading-guide/

Notes: Other mentors in memoirs: Father Joe by Tony Hendra. Nic Sheff’s sponsor in Tweak was also revealing, but did not have the same depth of relationship.

Notes
Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon
Click here to read eight lessons you can learn from Dopefiend

For brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Memoir Interview: Shame, Addiction and Anonymity

by Jerry Waxler

In a previous post, I reviewed eight lessons you can learn from the excellent memoir “Dopefiend: A Father’s Journey from Addiction to Redemption” by Tim Elhajj. In this interview, I asked him for more insight into the process of writing the book, and what it felt like to see his story come to life on the page. In the first part of the interview, we discuss shame, self-acceptance, and anonymity.

Jerry Waxler: Your book, Dopefiend hit my memoir buttons such as excellent scene based story building, moral dilemmas that led inexorably to character development, and the drama of ordinary life. Thank you for all the work you did to turn your life into a story and then sharing that story with me.

Which leads me to my first question. Now that you are a responsible adult, with an established career, how did it feel to write a memoir about yourself as a young man who didn’t have a clue about his responsibility to other people? Were you squirming with annoyance or disbelief at your younger self’s lack of preparation for life?

Tim Elhajj: Not really, no. And I’m not even sure why that is. Certainly my behavior as an addict was immoral and irresponsible. I’m not proud of the fact that my first marriage ended as a result of my out-of-control needs. Nor am I happy that my son grew up in a home that didn’t include me. Perhaps I am being too easy on myself, but I like to think that I’ve learned to accept my past for what it is: the unfortunate but all too common circumstances of heroin addiction.

One of my goals with the book was to offer a hopeful story for single parents who might find themselves in similar circumstances, coming into recovery separated from their children, or ostracized from their families. What I learned is that even if you don’t resume a relationship with your previous partner, you might still be able to hammer out a satisfying relationship with your child. But to make something like that work, it’s going to take a lot of forgiveness. While I can’t make someone else forgive me, a good place for me to start is with forgiving myself. If I can get that right, I stand a much better chance that others will naturally fall back into my life, if they are meant to be there. But it all starts with me and my own ability to get on with my life.

Jerry Waxler: Over the period during which you developed the memoir, how did your relationship to the protagonist (your younger self) evolve? Did you grow to like him, accept him, resent him…?

Tim Elhajj: The big awareness I had about myself and my life came with the idea for the book itself: I wanted to tell the story of my relationship with my son, using each of the spiritual values at the heart of twelve step programs. The events I describe at the end of the book actually happened about six years ago. I don’t want to give away the ending of the book, but these events caused me to reevaluate my whole experience in recovery, especially with regard to AA’s twelve steps and my relationship with my son. I realized that by practicing these principles, I had somehow achieved what I had always hoped for with my son, but could never figure out how to orchestrate on my own. With that awareness, I was able to map out the entire story of my recovery, as told through the prism of my relationship with my son. I remember getting really excited the more I thought about it. As if in having this awareness, I had found the secret key to decipher some aspect of my life. In some ways I had.

Jerry Waxler: I notice that you list your day job on your website. So without a pseudonym, that leaves you out in the open. Were you worried that revealing your past would upset your employer or coworkers?

Tim Elhajj: No, not really. I did mention Dopefiend to my manager a few weeks before it came out. He was supportive and I wasn’t surprised. I expected he would be. Prior to publishing the book, I had already “come out” in a few other stories I had published in various journals and newspapers. One of the first stories that I had published was in The New York Times, and it was about my relationship with my son, really a similar version of the story in Dopefiend, but much shorter and without any mention of me being an addict. Dan Jones, the editor who published the story for The New York Times, pointedly asked me about leaving that part out of the essay. I told him I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t want anyone to think badly about me. Mr. Jones, who is just a mensch of an editor, published my story without altering it. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized: What the hell kind of essayist writes around being a recovering heroin addict, one of the most salient facts of his life? If I wanted to write memoir, I knew I’d have to come to terms with being open about who I am and the life I’ve led. And, really, that was the right choice for me. I don’t think every story I write needs to be about my recovery or my addiction, but evaluating one’s life openly and honestly, without shame or fear, is the right path for me. It’s like the advice Tobias Wolff wrote to Mary Karr as she set out to write the Liar’s Club. “Don’t be afraid of appearing angry, small-minded, obtuse, mean, immoral, amoral, calculating, or anything else,” Mr. Wolff wrote. “Take no care for your dignity.”

Jerry Waxler: You explore your profound relationship with the Twelve Step programs. Isn’t anonymity one of the principles of the Twelve Steps? Did you worry that you were violating that principle?

Tim Elhajj: Anonymity is one of the traditions of most every twelve step program. As far as the book goes, I was careful not to mention AA or any other fellowship by name in the book, so I think I did okay with the spirit of the tradition.

I am very interested in this question of anonymity and twelve step programs. I think it may have been helpful at some point, but I wonder if that point may have already passed. Twelve step meetings appear in television and movie dramas, even parodied in popular culture. I think people deserve a nonfiction perspective to go along with the fiction and satire. And not just a single person’s perspective either. I’d encourage others to share their stories and experiences as well. It’s really an interesting subculture and phenomena.

And, really, twelve step programs are only a single piece of the bigger picture of resources and therapies available for recovering people. I’d like to hear nonfiction stories from other people who have used different methods to find their way into recovery. No one should be afraid of the truth. The truth can’t hurt you.

In Part Two, we take a fresh look at writing about the Twelve Steps. In the third part of the interview, Elhajj talks about writing the book and publishing it.

Notes
Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon
Click here to read eight lessons you can learn from Dopefiend

For brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

8 Lessons and Prompts from Tim Elhajj’s Recovery Memoir

by Jerry Waxler

After reading Tim Elhajj’s memoir “Dopefiend” about recovering from addiction, I learned many lessons that could help other memoir-writers-in-training develop aspects of their own work.

Grittiness, Chaos and Order
New York City is the perfect place for getting lost in addiction. That’s where Dani Shapiro lost her way in her memoir Slow Motion. The city felt like a co-conspirator in her seduction. But Elhajj turned that expectation upside down. For him, New York City supported his recovery. By getting out of his old haunts, sticking with the recovery community, and taking advantage of New York’s educational system, Elhajj was able to climb out of chaos into competence.

Writing Prompt
Look for intricate ways that the environment shaped your journey. If you lived in a city, how did urban life affect you? If you lived in a small town, a farm, a small town, a military base, how did the particular culture of the place influence your development?

Starting at the bottom and then building up
Addicts obey the law of the street, doing whatever they must, without concern for their impact on others. In extreme situations, that means falling below minimum standards of morality, stealing and trading sex for money.

“Dope Fiend” starts with Elhajj in recovery. However, even though his addiction is in the past, it leaves powerful after-effects. He must recover not only from drugs but also from the chaotic, self-involved, impulsive code of the addict, in order to participate in the socially responsible law of the citizen.

Writing Prompt
A good book takes the reader on a ride through the protagonist’s character development. To turn your own life into a good book, visualize the chart of your moral development. Do you start at the bottom and move up, the way Elhajj did? Or like Nic Sheff in Tweak, did you at first only pretend to be giving up your faults? Or did you start out in life full of promise but then erupt with insecurities and fall into your shadow-self the way Dani Shapiro did in Slow Motion and I did in my memoir in progress? Chart your own graph.

Twelve Steps
Tim Elhajj does an excellent job of showing how the Twelve Step programs saved him from his fall. He kept the story fresh by focusing on his own unique experience, and avoided, as much as possible, the insider lingo.

Writing Prompt
Any story about a group needs to explain just enough detail about the rules and insider routines. If you explain too little, the reader could become confused, and if you explain too much the reader could feel like you are teaching or preaching. Consider the various groups you have belonged to, whether the military, a sports team, a music group, cult, religion, fire department, writing club, or anything else. Write scenes that show the unique attitudes within the group while making it fresh enough to give the reader a sense of participation.

Spirituality
The Twelve Step programs are built on trust in a higher power, which makes them, in my opinion, essentially spiritual organizations. Elhajj’s book takes us inside the experience of the Twelve Steps and explores their impact on his life.

Writing prompt
Write a scene that includes a spiritual awakening or an acceptance or insight into your relationship with a higher power.

Mentors
Some of the strongest scenes of moral awakening take place in conversations between the author and his mentor. When Elhajj presents a problem, his mentor reminds him to think about his principles. For example, when he hits on a woman who just starting recovery, his sponsor tells him she is too vulnerable and he should respect her boundaries. When Elhajj presses the point, the older man asks him if this is what he really wants. It is advice-giving at its best, forcing Elhajj to consult his own budding moral compass.

Note: Another excellent of mentoring is in Henry Louis Gates’s Colored People. When Gates is stuck in a hospital bed, a visiting minister recommends he extend his vision beyond the boundaries of his small town.

Writing prompt
Find a scene that includes you receiving some advice from a parent, friend, teacher or some other mentor. Show how the advice influenced you.

Lessons Learned: The character arc
Listening is an incredibly important skill, and one of the first and most fundamental lessons taught to therapists. Elhajj’s memoir shows how he learned this crucial topic. He lets us see his frustration when people give him clumsy advice. He also shows his admiration of those people who listen to him and then speak gently. Later he takes advantage of the bad examples and the good ones, when he speaks to his son. It is one of the best examples of learning to listen that I have seen in literature.

Writing Prompt
What life ah-ha have you learned? Write a scene that shows it.

Fathers and sons
Elhajj starts his story as a young father who was so lost in his own confusion, he barely even tried to guide his own son. Gradually, he begins to find himself, and the stronger he grows, the more he longs for the privilege of giving his son the kind of example every young man needs. Dopefiend is about Elhajj’s journey to become a complete man, and his desire to be a good father is an important part of that journey. His own son forces him to grow, giving fresh meaning to Wordsworth’s famous line, “the child is father of the man.”

Writing Prompt
What intense experience did you have with your father, or son, or with your mother or daughter? Search through generations, and look for patterns. For example, what resentment did you have about your parent that you then saw reflected in yourself and your children?

Denouement of a memoir
The book is a saga of the transition from a dope fiend to a responsible member of society. At the end of Dopefiend, Elhajj achieves many of the successes of a healthy life. In addition to sobriety, he has a budding relationship with his adult son, a loving partner, and a rapprochement with his mother. Through the journey, he often benefits from the kindness of people who want to help him. It is as if, despite all his efforts to destroy his life, God or some higher power, or perhaps just the goodness of people, keep showering him with forgiveness, with second chances, with alternatives. Some spark of insight allows him to take advantage of these gifts and grow to become a complete person.

Such insights into human nature are one of my favorite reasons for reading memoirs. Their message allows readers to close the book with warm feelings, hopeful about the ways of the world. As a result of these good feelings, grateful readers will recommend the book to their friends, as I do to you.

Writing Prompt
What lesson did life teach you? Write about it in scenes, or in reflection to see if it could perhaps make a good denouement for your story.

Notes
Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon

Click here to read an essay about Dopefiend as an extended Coming of Age story.

For a fascinating example of a book that leads deep into the secret world of a group, read Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman.

For a grittier look at an active addiction, read “Tweak” by Nic Sheff. Click here for an article about Nic Sheff’s addiction and his father’s desperate attempt to save him.

For another memoir with an excellent, uplifting message, read Kate Braestrup’s “Here if you Need Me.”  Click here for an article about grieving in memoirs.

For brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Coming of Age Never Ends

by Jerry Waxler

Some of the most popular memoirs of our time have been about the period of life called Coming of Age. In fact stories of childhood and adolescence, such as Jeanette Walls’ Glass Castle and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes arguably ignited the explosive interest in the memoir genre. However, not all Coming of Age stories proceed from childhood in an orderly fashion.

For example, Dani Shapiro started with the advantages of a wealthy upbringing, but her memoir Slow Motion is about her detour into drugs and sex. When she regained her footing, Shapiro headed back to college. Another author, Tim Elhajj, fell off the tracks much earlier in his life. During adolescence, when he should have been learning about dating and trying to keep up his grades, Elhajj was scoring his next hit of heroin. By the age most of us were trying to start a career, he was getting serious about quitting drugs, but unlike Shapiro he couldn’t go back. He needed to start over.

At the beginning of Elhajj’s memoir, Dopefiend: A Father’s Journey from Addiction to Redemption, he is morally, emotionally, and financially bankrupt. He starts adulthood from the very bottom, a moral infant, obsessed as all addicts are by the need for a fix. It’s a powerful place to start a memoir, jolting the reader into the central question: how is this man going to become a full-fledged adult, long after that ship was supposed to have sailed? His story lets me feel the frustration and courage of overcoming his own impulsive behavior.

His saving grace was a close association with the Twelve Step programs, which helped him do more than stop drugs. The program gave him the tools to build the social, ethical, and spiritual foundation he needed to climb, like ivy toward the light. Year after year, he continued to grow more mature, to learn moral values and adult responsibilities. His memoir resonates with my belief that character development is one of the most exciting things about literature and about life.

I too have been on a lifelong journey to make sense of my life. Unlike Elhajj, I did not destroy my youth with heroin. Instead I turned my intellectual prowess to thoroughly tear apart every value I was supposed to live for. By the time I finished college, I too had become a mental and moral infant, with no sense of responsibility to my society and no sense of direction. Only by finding a spiritual path was I able to climb back from chaos and start my rehabilitation.

As a result of decades of personal development, I became fascinated by the potential for adults to keep growing. In my late 40s, I went back to graduate school to became a therapist. When I started talking to therapy clients, I discovered that I’m not so unusual after all. Many people who have achieved adulthood in calendar years, still are looking to achieve maturity in other dimensions of their lives.

In the 21st century, many memoir writers are stepping forward to share the complexities of their long, slow, intricate Coming of Age. Tim Elhajj’s memoir about finding himself later in life has, more clearly than any book I’ve read so far, shared the rewards of continued searching and growing. His project of self-discovery is a perfect example of the adage, “What I am is God’s gift to me. What I become is my gift to God.”

In my next blog posting, I will share a number of writing prompts and lessons I derived from Tim Elhajj’s Dopefiend.

Notes

Click here for Tim Elhajj’s home page
Click here for Dopefiend on Amazon

Click here to read an article about the relationship between Young Adult fiction and Coming of Age memoirs.
Click here for an article about why Coming of Age memoirs deserves its own genre

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Revealing Death and Other Courageous Acts of Life

by Jerry Waxler

I met Robert Waxler online last year when I was reviewing his memoir  “Losing Jonathan” about his son’s heroin addiction. During the first half of the book, Robert and his wife Linda tried to stop their son’s downward slide. In the second half, they grieved his passing. I admired his courage to share this journey and was even more impressed by Robert’s second memoir, “Courage to Walk,” about another family tragedy. His surviving son, Jeremy, was stricken with a mysterious, deadly illness and the book is about the family’s journey to stay hopeful and safe.

As an English professor at the University of Massachusetts, Robert has been delving into the power of the written word for a lifetime. Now, as he looked for strength to sustain him through his trials, he turned to the deep insights shared by his favorite authors. And then he turned to books again, as the vehicle through which he could pass his story to readers.

In addition to our mutual interest in literature, naturally we were curious about our shared last name. Neither of us had ever met a Waxler to whom we weren’t related. Over the course of the year, we discussed the possibility of giving a joint presentation about memoirs. Recently, I arranged such a talk sponsored by the Philadelphia Writers Conference.

Robert and Linda drove down from Dartmouth, Massachusetts a day early to do some sightseeing. We agreed to meet outside the museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall in Philadelphia; a fitting backdrop, since his ancestors and mine were Russian Jewish immigrants. My sister joined us to extend our greetings, one Waxler clan to another.

We sat in the coffee shop at the museum and talked with energy, jumping enthusiastically from one topic to another. Since our ancestral records no longer exist, we wondered if our easy flow indicated a shared ancestry. A woman walked by and Robert called out her name. She was an old friend of his and his wife’s from Massachusetts who just happened to be in this spot, hundreds of miles from home. My mother had an expression, “coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.” Was this a sign?

Even though we had agreed for months that we would give a joint presentation, I didn’t know exactly what that meant. How would we interact in a way that would bring value to our audience? The next morning over coffee, I proposed the way we would organize the talk, and he agreed. Then we drove to the lovely campus of Montgomery County Community College to a lecture hall where about 20 people were already seated, including two of my cousins. Linda Waxler, who coauthored “Losing Jonathan” sat in the back of the lecture hall with my sister and her husband. I smiled thinking how fitting it was that a memoir workshop had turned into a family affair.

I introduced the talk with the enthusiasm I always bring to this topic. “In the memoir age, we read books by people who spend years turning their lives into literature. Today we’re going to meet an English professor who turned to the written word to cope with his personal tragedy. Then in the second half, we’ll give you some pointers on how to turn your own lives into literature.”

Robert Waxler stood, radiating the authority that he had gained from a lifetime of teaching. He described how he grappled with his emotions and beliefs during Jonathan’s fall from a lovely, promising childhood into heroin addiction, and how he stood on that precipice between despair and faith. Then, he explained his decision to turn that experience into “Losing Jonathan.” Last year, when I read this memoir, I wrestled with my prejudice that English professors are not free to express this much frank emotion. What would his colleagues and students think? But now, listening to him speak so eloquently about how he placed these precious experiences on the page, it felt so right. As a man of letters, of course he wanted to locate these profoundly human events in the world of literature.

When he started, he seemed to be gathering his thoughts, selecting elements of his memory and intention. By the time he finished, his voice was strong and there was a cadence to his speech. I have always admired the way a good professor can lean into his topic and share not only his information but also his enthusiasm about the subject. Today, the professor enveloped us in his vision, not by speaking about someone else’s writing, but by sharing his own intentions as a writer, a father, and a human being.

Then it was my job to turn the audience’s attention back to their own goals. I realized there wasn’t enough time to conduct a real workshop, but in the small amount of time available, I wanted to convince everyone that the problems of writing a memoir are solvable. “When you look back through your memories, they fly out at you in a variety of bits and pieces, entangled in time, and at first only make sense to you. As you write scenes and accumulate them in sequence, they begin to take shape. As you see the material of your life take shape on the page, you gradually tame the flood of memories and begin to craft them into a story worth reading.”

After my portion of the talk, I opened the floor to questions. Ordinarily in memoir workshops the majority of questions are about how to write about life, but today the audience wanted to pour out their empathy to a couple who lost a child to drugs. One of the raised hands belonged to my cousin. In a shaky voice, she said, “Thank you so much for writing about this.” I could hardly hear her and asked her to say more. She continued, “I was twelve years old before I found that my uncle died. It was a suicide and no one would talk about it.”

I thought, “Oh. That family nightmare.” I was a little boy when my father’s nephew, after graduating medical school, had a mental breakdown and killed himself. The family immediately imposed a silence around the event, and I never understood the emotional impact. Now, I saw the shock in my cousin’s face these many years later.

Linda Waxler, from the back of the room, spoke up with a strong, purposeful voice. Looking directly at my cousin, Linda said, “That’s the reason we wrote “Losing Jonathan.” When he died, people pulled away from us. We wanted to educate people to understand that when someone dies, that’s the time to pull together. Silence is the most painful response.”

Their exchange reminded me that people have a tendency to hide extraordinary things about themselves, even events that cry out for compassion. I have heard the issue expressed in my memoir workshops, where writers express fear and uncertainty about how much of their lives to reveal. To direct the audience’s attention back to their own writing, I said, “We often think we must keep our secrets hidden in order to be accepted, but in fact, the secrets themselves keep us separated. Memoir writing lets us explore and share these parts of ourselves. When hidden material is told in a story, it takes on a universal quality that we can all relate to.”

My other cousin spoke up. “It’s true. We always had secrets. My mother wouldn’t tell any of her friends when I was divorced. No one wanted to talk about that back then.”

I responded, “Times are changing, and memoirs are helping break down these barriers. Jeannette Walls, author of the bestseller “Glass Castle,” said that before she wrote her memoir, she was deeply ashamed of her poor, chaotic childhood. Now, thanks to her book and others like it, we are sharing many things that once were hidden.”

At the end of the meeting, people gathered around to thank us. I love these moments after a talk when people pour back some of the energy that I poured out. I looked at Bob and smiled. If we had been forty years younger, we would have given each other high fives. As we said goodbye, Robert and I promised to do it again. “We can call ourselves the Two Waxlers,” I said, “and give talks about how memoirs matter.” “Yes, a road tour,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

I realized how comfortable I was with all these people, a comfort level that for most of my life had been entirely foreign to me. For decades, I felt distant from my family. Now I was wondering how much of my distance was based on my secret. After I left my childhood neighborhood in Philadelphia to go out into the world, I decided that being part of a minority religion made me an outsider. Writing my memoir has given me more confidence to accept all these parts of myself. Letting go of my secrets feels like letting go of my walls.

As I walked across the parking lot to my car, I thought about my mom’s image of a God who tries to let us know He is there, without really letting us know. I wondered how clever He might be feeling right now, arranging things so that an English professor and his wife could learn hard lessons about life, and then write and speak about what they learned to help other people get in touch with their own secrets. When I give memoir workshops, my focus in on helping other people learn about their own lives, but today I felt the guilty pleasure of having learned something about my own.

Notes

To read an essay I wrote about Robert Waxler’s memoir “Courage to Walk” click here.

To read an essay about “Losing Jonathan,” click here.

To read an interview with Robert Waxler about his memoirs, click here.

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Recovering Self-concept after Addiction

by Jerry Waxler

As teenagers, our first buzz expands options and reveals mysteries. Grateful for these gifts, we shift our priorities, leading to bad decisions and frayed relationships. The substance siphons off the precious energy that could have been fueling the climb toward our dreams.

Addiction exposes this edgy limitation of the human experience: we need to be in control, and yet, we often are not. Consider a comedian whose pratfall turns his body into a sack of potatoes. There’s hardly a surer way to get a laugh. However, what is funny in comedy is shameful in real life. If we stumble, we pretend it didn’t happen. Addicts do the same thing, collapsing toward the substance while claiming they are in complete control. By hiding and lying, addicts push away helping hands.

Beneath the surface, though, some higher instinct compels an upward gaze. With help and struggle, many who have fallen down, get up, glad to march forward, as long as we don’t look back.

Long after recovery, regrets exert a backward pull. “Did I really have all of that and throw it away?” We try to ignore those glimpses in our rearview mirror of screwed up parts of our lives, betrayals not only of other people but of our own ideals.

According to the Twelve Step programs, instead of ignoring the past, we must make peace with it. The Fourth Step, the moral inventory, fearlessly focuses our attention on the things we would rather forget. The Fourth Step collects the fragments and helps us pull them together, reclaiming an appreciation for a whole self, including the years devoted in service to the addictive substance or behavior. Through authentic self-exploration and sharing, the members of Alcoholics or Narcotics or Gamblers Anonymous reach toward each other for support.

However, because of the shame associated with the loss of control, they continue to shield themselves from the public. Perhaps that is changing. In the memoir age, such walls of secrecy and shame are breaking down. Memoirs give addicted individuals a voice, turning the sorrow of their fall into a more complete story which celebrates the courage of return. In the twenty first century, memoirs shine the light of wisdom on such behavior, empowering more of us to help each other or be helped sooner.

Examples

Susan Cheever, “My Life in a Bottle.” The daughter of a famous writer hits the bottle and shows how the seduction of alcohol can drain the inner person while the outer one appears competent.

Dani Shapiro, “Slow Motion.” A daughter in a privileged New York family lets drugs, alcohol, and sex consume her life.

Nic Sheff, “Tweak.” Nic Sheff, a talented young man with a promising future, loses himself in methamphetamines. Then he slowly and fitfully climbs out.

Gail Caldwell, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home.” A writer, dog lover, and best friend, recounts her complex journey from alcohol to life. It has some of the best Alcoholics Anonymous scenes I’ve read. Gail Caldwell’s best friend is Caroline Knapp, author of “Drinking, A Love Story,” an intimate personal account of the journey out of denial and back to sobriety. “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” pays homage to their friendship as well as their return from addiction.

Mary Karr, “Lit.” Famous for her first memoir “Liar’s Club,” in this sequel Mary Karr recounts her long bleary journey through the world of inebriation and then step by step back towards society and God.

My relationship to substances
By my second year in college, I smoked dope most days. Before I knew what was happening, my self-concept became murky and confused. The decisions I made during those years dismantled my original dream of becoming a doctor. When I finally stopped taking drugs, I faced a long climb. Returning to health wasn’t the hardest part. Now that I had thrown away my goals, I had to work for decades to replace my original mission with a new one. Eventually, it worked out okay. But how does such an interrupted and resurrected lifetime make sense? By writing my memoir, I see the way each decision led to the next. I no longer need to pick and choose the good parts and try to throw away the bad. The self-concept that arises through the memoir is every bit as whole as the one I originally envisioned, and in many respects far more interesting and multi-dimensional.

Writing Prompt
What was your relationship to addiction, whether substances or behavior? If you have never admitted these experiences to anyone and are afraid to put them on paper, be ready to delete them or burn them. To help you adjust to these human foibles, speak to a therapist or share your writing in a supportive critique group.
Link to other articles in this series

Who Am I? 10 ways memoir reading and writing helps clarify identity

Self-concept and memoir – launching problems and identifying with a group

Recovering self-concept after trauma

Self Concept and Memoirs: The Power of Purpose

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

A memoir of mourning helps make sense of loss

By Jerry Waxler

Read how our collective interest in turning life into story is changing the world, one story at a time.

The first half of the memoir “Losing Jonathan” by Robert and Linda Waxler is about their attempt to stop their son’s fall into heroin addiction. At the center of the story was a good kid, loved by his family and friends, a college grad bursting with potential and a desire to change the world. By the time his parents discovered his problem, all of that was tearing apart. Horrified to learn that Jonathan was in trouble, his parents were torn out of their ordinary lives and hurled into pleading and research, therapists and rehab.

They felt caught in the cruel undertow of drug addiction. Something was stealing their son and they couldn’t stop it. After a stint in rehab, they hoped he had returned to them. And then the call came. A tainted dose of heroin had ended his life. The second half of the book recounts the following years of their grieving. The book is told from both their points of view with Robert’s passages written in straight font and Linda’s in italics.

The father’s journey

During the year they knew about Jonathan’s addiction, Robert struggled to hold on to his own emotional center, relying on his family, friends, and his Jewish faith. After his son’s death, he turned even more desperately towards these supports. Meanwhile, his mind was churning, second-guessing what more he could have done, and struggling to make sense of a world in which such things could happen. Amidst his thoughts are wonderful images of the young boy in his earlier life, full of hope and promise.

Robert Waxler, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, has devoted his life to teaching literature as well as finding the wisdom within it. He believed so deeply in the power of writing that he founded a program called “Changing Lives Through Literature,” to help convicted criminals find their way to social responsibility.

So when he tried to cope with his own loss, he looked towards literature for help. In “Losing Jonathan,” he writes, “Literature helped me keep my anger in check. It gave me a sense of proportions, of tolerance. But it didn’t foreclose on passion, nor did it serve as an escape from Jonathan’s death. Sometimes standing in an empty room, I will yell out loud at Jonathan, even now, and wonder why this tragedy happened.”

The mother’s journey

Linda was so overwhelmed, she didn’t know what to say. Neither did her neighbors, coworkers, and acquaintances. So they avoided her. At the time when she needed the most support, she felt most alone.

“Losing Jonathan” revealed the effects of the passage of time, showing grieving as a sequence of inner adjustments. After a few years, Linda began to reclaim her poise enough to greet people and look them in the eye. Robert writes, “Near the end of the fourth year, Linda wrote her own article about grief, a stunning composite of her feelings and her knowledge. It was published in several places including the Providence Journal Sunday Magazine. She was stretching, touching others, rejoining a community, becoming a writer of her own life.”

In the fifth year, Robert writes, “We were like the wedding guest who listens to the tale of the Ancient Mariner in Coleridge’s poem, disturbed by the spell cast by his turbulent journey, but wiser now. At the end of the poem, the Mariner is gone, leaving the wedding guest to stand alone, forlorn, stunned into wonder at the vision:

And now the Wedding Guest
Turned from the bridegroom’s door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn;
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.”

Many layers of grieving

Memoirs of grieving have a special place in my library, since they take me on the author’s spiritual journey, trying to reclaim the meaning of life after its loss. In another memoir, “Here if you need me,” Kate Braestrup wrote about losing her husband in a freak accident. Then, she had to get on with her life. In the end, she arrived at a lovely conclusion, summarizing her feelings about death in a compelling and uplifting chapter on good and evil. When I’m asked which memoir is my favorite, this is usually the one that comes to mind.

Now I realize after reading “Losing Jonathan” that I loved the Waxlers’ memoir for similar reasons. Like Kate Braestrup they were on a quest to wrest their sanity back from the abyss. At first they were thirsty for support from their community. Then, after five years, Linda suggested, “We should try to write a book. It would be a way of honoring Jonathan’s life. Sustaining it.” The suggestion reflected Linda’s desire to give back to the community some of the strength they had given her. And the vehicle for their gift was a book.

Publishing the book was a social act, a generous gift to each other and the world. I feel encouraged by the willingness of these authors to share their inner process with the rest of us, to give us insights, tips, and guidance to help us stay strong and wise during our own recovery from loss.

Click here for the Amazon page for Losing Jonathan by Robert Waxler and Linda Waxler

Click here for the Amazon page for Waxler’s second memoir, Courage to Walk by Robert Waxler

Writing prompt
If you suffered a loss, describe the situation. Show the external signs of your suffering (tears, blank staring, incoherent cries, or inappropriate silences, pounding the wall). Show the impact on relationships (arguments, withdrawal). Write about how you tried to find meaning, (discussions, readings). Where did you turn to help you make sense? Describe the ideas that helped you patch together the universe. Write a scene that shows you emerging from the valley.

Notes about multiple voices in a memoir
I have read several memoirs that speak from more than one point of view. “Color of Water” by James McBride includes extensive passages taken from interviews with his mother. “The Kids Are All Right” is told by all four Welch siblings. In “My Father’s House” the author Miranda Seymour occasionally steps outside the narrative of the book to discuss its assertions with her mother. “Picking Cotton” is written in the voices of Jennifer Thompson-Cannino who was brutally raped, and Ronald Cotton, the man who served seven years in jail for the crime he didn’t commit.

Writing Prompt about multiple voices
Consider giving prominent characters in your story their own voice. If practical, interview these people. Observe the interplay between their perspective and yours and try to imagine how a memoir might include their observations or even their voice.

Another memoir that fast-forwards at the end
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg in “The Sky Begins at your Feet” continues with an epilog that shares the years of survival after her surgery. Coincidentally, Mirriam-Goldberg also believes in the power of literature to change lives and community. See her organization for literature and social change, Transformative Language Arts Network

Writing Prompt for epilogs
If you need to explain how life kept going after the presumed end of your memoir, consider tacking on a postscript that shows what happens after the main or central story is over.

Read an interview with Robert Waxler

To read an essay about Robert Waxler’s memoir, “Courage to Walk” click here.

Note

For another view of a son’s fall into addiction see the pair of memoirs: “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff  and “Tweak” by Nic Sheff  see my essay, Matched pair of memoirs show both sides of addiction

More memoir writing resources

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my how-to-get-started guide to write your memoir, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Matched pair of memoirs show both sides of addiction

by Jerry Waxler

Addicts often think of their affliction as a victimless crime, but these two memoirs show both sides of the story. “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff  is written from the father’s point of view, while “Tweak” by Nic Sheff tells the son’s tragic journey through meth addiction. The dual vantage point provides a stunning insight into the corrosive effect drugs have on users and their families.

In the father’s memoir, David watches his son start out full of joy and creativity. Sneaking into a liquor cabinet, the son’s first experiment with substances started when he was 11 years-old, and keeps getting worse, accelerating out of control when he tries crystal meth. As his focus narrows to one thing only, he gives up everything he values, every morsel of sanity and pride. Neglecting responsibility to his parents, siblings, and his own value system, he steals, prostitutes, and deals. With each bad decision he falls deeper into the hole and drags down everyone who loves him.

Details vary from one substance to another. Some make you numb, or buzzed, or make you feel in communion with the cosmos. Others break social inhibitions. Whatever the particular effect, they all share one thing. They make you feel like you’ve wrested control away from adults. Now you can shift your state of mind at will. At first it feels like you have become the ruler of your own destiny.

It takes time for the harm to emerge from behind its glittering mask, by which time the damage is done. Broken relationships. Lost opportunities. And the risks intensify. Car crashes, loss of mental functioning, the quick death of overdosing or the slow death of disease. Nic’s dad pleaded and threatened his son. Nic retorted, “You did it and you turned out okay.” Then he slipped out of reach. Swearing he wasn’t using or would never do it again, he continued tripping and scheming, lost inside himself.

The wildcard in these youthful experiments is addiction, a neurological response that the user never anticipates. Once the brain becomes dependent, the drug that started out like glorious freedom reveals its cruel intentions. Hijacking the brain’s pleasure center, drugs and alcohol shift the user’s attention from the will to live towards a single-minded goal of getting high.

Finally, after sinking close to death, Nic tried to get clean. He succeeded for a while, built his life back, and then kept relapsing. Critics argue that relapse proves rehabs are a sham, a con, a waste of money. On the other hand, there are so few things society can do for addicts, and rehab seems like one of the best. My experience is that people come out of these programs knowing so much more about themselves and their addiction than they knew when they went in. It takes time to put the knowledge into practice.

Nic’s memoir “Tweak” begins in the midst of a horrific relapse. Despite all his effort, he was right back at the bottom. And even in this degrading state, Dad kept trying to raise his son out of hell. Their combined effort provided them both a deeper, stronger foundation on which to build permanent sobriety and mutual understanding. The two books propose we take another look at rehab. Instead of seeing relapse as defeat, look at it as a series of stumbles from which the addict can arise, and eventually look back on these terrible valleys as stages along the road to victory.

How can you preach if you really did try drugs and alcohol?

When I was a college student in the sixties, my peers and I believed drugs gave us a front row seat to Truth. From our stoned vantage point, we knew beyond doubt we could see straight to the heart of Reality, and that we were far more insightful than the poor fools who were not under the influence. It took me years to realize the smoke was merely creating the illusion of wisdom, leading me to believe I was smart, while step by step I abandoned my beliefs and ambitions. Following a direction that makes no sense to my sober mind today, I made a series of impractical and self-destructive decisions, harming myself gladly, stranding myself on the precipice of oblivion.

I can’t imagine what pain my parents must have suffered as I pushed away from them. Now, as I draft my memoir, I gain a new appreciation for this whole story, seeing who I was before I was smoking and then who I became after. The overview shows me that “harmless” marijuana damaged my life by letting me profoundly alter my belief system without bothering to check with people who had lived longer and seen more. After I cleared away the clouds and saw where I had gone wrong, I could never regain what I had thrown away, so like all fallen addicts, I started from where I had fallen and continued marching forward.

Lean on each other
During the descent, Dad leans on his professional journalism experience for support, interviewing experts and clutching to their information and advice, desperate to regain control. The news was never good. According to the experts whom David Sheff consults, crystal meth is the most destructive, most addictive drug, with the most relapses and the worst statistics of early death. What happens to someone like Nic, so full of promise and so deeply invested in getting high that his addiction pushed away all sense and advice? Nic kept hearing that the only escape was through the Twelve Step Programs, and even though he didn’t want to, he was finally desperate enough to try. The Twelve Steps gradually seeped in.

Nic’s sponsor said, “Call me whenever you need me” and when Nic was able to bust through the hypnotic spell of temptation, the phone call worked. Spence talked him through to the next minute and the next day. Mentoring made a huge difference in Nic’s life, and is one of the reasons the Twelve Steps are so powerful. As the grand finale of their own journey out of addiction, Twelve Steppers learn to pass on what they’ve learned. As a writer, Nic has a way to spread the message farther than he could one-on-one. Through his book and his blog, he tells his story to thousands.

Addicts are not the only ones who have a valuable perspective about life. And therein lies the crux of memoir writing. By sharing our experience, all memoir writers have the possibility of offering some wisdom to the world, helping other people learn from our experience, hopefully saving them from the necessity of making the same mistakes themselves.

Click here to visit the Amazon page for “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff

Click here to visit the Amazon page for “Tweak” by Nic Sheff

Click here to visit Nic Sheff’s Blog

Click here to read my essay about the relationship between The Twelve Steps and Memoir Writing

Note
This healing power of service pervades many thought systems. In particular, is Frankl’s idea that all of human suffering can be helped by living a life with a higher purpose. For more, read Frankl’s landmark memoir, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

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Let Your Memoir Take You to the Fourth Step

by Jerry Waxler

The first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I attended was held in the basement of a church. I sat in my car until the meeting was about to start and then slipped in, hoping no one would notice. It wasn’t my idea to be there. The professor of my addictions counseling class at Villanova had assigned us the task of attending.

The speaker told her story of descending into the pit of alcoholism, losing her marriage, home, and children, and finally selling her body. Thanks to the Twelve Steps, she had been able to pull herself together. When I left the meeting that night, in addition to a renewed appreciation for the havoc that can be wreaked by substances, I also had witnessed one of our culture’s great institutions, dedicated to helping people in desperate situations build up their self-esteem and life-skills.

While I am not addicted to substances, there have been many times in my life when I felt out of control, like my years struggling with loneliness and depression, or coming to terms with the barrage of news about war, divisive politics, poverty, and disease. While I have a variety of tools to help me cope, occasionally I wish there was a Twelve Step meeting to overcome everyday feelings of being out of control.

Although I have not found an actual Twelve Step program for ordinary situations, I do see analogs that could serve some of the same purposes. The method of self-help pervading all civilizations since the beginning of history is the quest for support from a Higher Power. There are lots of meetings that can help us seek that transcending connecction. Another powerful offering of the Twelve Step programs are slogans, such as “give me the courage to change what I can and accept what I can’t” and “one day at a time.” All of us could benefit from uplifting phrases, because the things you say to yourself affect how you feel.

Now, as I study memoir writing, I believe I have stumbled upon another connection with the Twelve Steps. The Fourth Step says, “We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” The goal of taking this inventory is to replace vague sorrows of “having messed up,” with more detailed information. It’s an important exercise for addicts who, in their pressure to obtain the next buzz, overrode their conscience more often than they would like to remember.

However, addicts do not hold a monopoly on regrets. Everyone bumps against things they wish they hadn’t done. As long as unpleasant memories remain tucked away, there is no way to learn from them. The Fourth Step suggests you pry them out of hiding. Once they’re in the open, you can work with them consciously, discover the details, find the implications, and then integrate the past into the complete picture of who you are and how you got here. This self-knowledge strengthens your ability to move more confidently into the present and future, and opens channels of compassion and connection with the people in your life.

The Twelve Step Programs started from inspired revelation, a seed planted by people desperate to find something more powerful than their addiction. In the following half a century, tens of thousands of people harvested the results of that inspiration. And as each generation learns, they arm themselves to help the next. To rescue their fallen comrades from the cauldron of addiction, perhaps one of the most selfish tendencies of human nature, these people have discovered within themselves one of the generous tendencies of human nature – the desire to help each other overcome challenges.

Memoir writers don’t belong to an elaborate step-by-step system of guidance and mutual support. When we take our moral inventory, we do it hunkered down alone at our desk. It sounds isolated. However, memoir writers turn towards another powerful resource. Our mentors are those writers who have gone before us, placing their lives on paper and leaving it for us in books. Reading memoir after memoir we witness the story, discovering lessons not just about the author’s lifetime but about their willingness to write it. Following their lead, we arrange and rearrange our own conglomeration of memories, until we too arrive at that system known as Story, a system as old as civilization itself.

When we tell about our history, when we hurt people or they hurt us, or resented, or misunderstood, or all the thousands of interactions we have with people, storytelling goes beyond initial emotions. We expand our thinking, and more clearly see all the characters in our lives, who they are and what the world looks like from their point of view.

Memoir writing is a powerful Step for anyone who wants to grow more resilient to face those things over which they have no control. As you write, you transform the past from a collection of memories into a path that goes from sin to redemption, from tragedy to grieving, from one step to the next step and the next. Stories are large enough to contain great mistakes and even evil, and their power goes beyond the individual. Through reading and writing, our stories intertwine, healing ourselves and our relationships, and leaving behind a map that can help others find their own way through the journey of life.

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