A Conversation with Cathryn Kemp – Adventurer and Author of “Painkiller Addict”

Cathryn Kemp is a world adventurer and successful travel writer.  She has several Lonely Planet books to her credit.  I was held at gunpoint on a Russian train; almost drowned in the Mekong.  I was involved in a botched kidnap attempt by a cab driver in Riga.  But the adventures didn’t stop there.  She was also a drug addict who was on the highest dose of fentanyl ever recorded at the center where she finally detoxed.

Addiction Myth sat down with Ms Kemp for this intimate interview conducted by email. Continue reading A Conversation with Cathryn Kemp – Adventurer and Author of “Painkiller Addict”

Painkiller Addict: Cathryn Kemp’s Cravings and Lies

Cathryn Kemp was a world adventurer and best selling travel writer struck down in the prime of life with acute pancreatitis, which is the most painful disease known to man.   At the same time she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Immediately it left her bedridden, and she developed chronic pancreatitis (a different but related disease), and had to move back home with her parents in the country side.  She was an invalid for several years, and for the first 2 years she took increasing quantities of morphine to manage the pain.  Then she switched to fentanyl, Continue reading Painkiller Addict: Cathryn Kemp’s Cravings and Lies

The Drinking Club

First of all, AA is *not* Christian. It is pagan. You can choose any Higher Power (god) you wish, and then you pray to it to remove your “cravings”. The First Commandment: You shall have no other gods before me.  New AA members are often encouraged to choose inanimate objects or even the group itself (“Group Of Drunks”) as their HP.  AA “theology” is incompatible with Christianity, even if many meetings take place in church basements, and even though some members insist it’s Christian.
Continue reading The Drinking Club

AA Goes Balls Out in Newburyport, Mass

Here is an example of AA in action and working brilliantly.  Bill W would be proud!

From http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addiction-in-society/201308/beware-aa-members-cant-help-being-pigs/comments:

I’ve lived in my area a long time. 30 years ago there was a group of people locally that abused drugs and alcohol. They hung out as a group, and used drugs and alcohol as a group.

In 2013 that same group hasn’t changed much. However, they’ve changed locations. Instead of the bar or people’s basements, they get together once a day to attend the NA meeting. It’s a massive meeting in a large meeting hall. The group has the same cohesiveness and petty bickering as they had 30 years ago. I know a few members of this NA cluster and they tell me what goes on.

First and foremost, several members of the group still drink and still do drugs. They like the social aspect of the group so they like to attend meetings to see their friends. The group is also used as a pick-up location. New members are always being sought for sexual relationships. Women reeling from addiction recovery and broken romantic relationship are actively recruited by seasoned members as easy targets for quick sexual flings.

Contractors looking for cheap labor also attend the meetings, looking for new members that might be homeless, recently released from prison so they can hire them at under-the-table sub-minimum wage rates.

Everybody in the group is well aware this is happening. Mind you, if AA and NA work for somebody I think that is great. I am sure that many NA and AA meetings are well-run and above board. But not all meetings are quality meetings. I have no idea whether anybody from AA audits what is happening. I certainly wouldn’t recommend any friend or acquaintance join up. I’ve seen and heard too much.

 

I don’t know what I’d do without AA

If I get tired of the guy I’m dating, I don’t reject him. That would make me look bad. I’d have to explain why I started dating him in the first place and make up some story to avoid hurting his feelings — messy. Instead, I get really drunk and make an ass of myself in front of his friends. If that doesn’t scare him away (i.e. if he’s the ‘caretaker’ type), then I get really drunk and piss in his bed. If that doesn’t work (yes, some guys are crazy), I tell him that I have an alcohol problem, and the relationship threatens my sobriety. I need to focus on myself, but hope we can still be friends. Not much they can say to that.

Then I go to AA for a couple meetings and talk about how alcohol ruined my last relationship, and how I need help, and blah blah. Everyone is instantly my friend. And then in a couple weeks I’m back on the club circuit looking for my next dude. I figure I can keep up this game through late-middle-age. At least, that’s the sense I get based on the old-timers’ stories.

AA is the only thing that ever worked for me

I was raised in a dysfunctional family of alcoholics and psychopaths. I learned early on how to use booze to get my way. It’s easy. Whenever you’re stuck in a bad situation, just drink and keep drinking until someone takes pity on you and lets you go. Daddy did that all the time.

I married much too young. She was no beauty but I figured she was the best I could do. Soon enough I got her pregnant and we had a daughter. I started to get that desperate feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was trapped and I didn’t know any way out. I was watching the wife getting older before my eyes. I was too young to be celibate. Yes I could just leave but then I would be the ‘bad guy’. I hatched a plan: I would become such an obnoxious drunk that my wife would leave me. Then I would be the innocent victim of a disease and she’d be the cruel one who broke her vows. Then I’d be free to do whatever I wanted!

Right after our daughter was born, my brother called me. He is schizo and depressed. I was busy with my daughter and didn’t want to help him. Plus my wife yelled at me for something, as usual. So I didn’t help him. In a few days, he was found dead in the bathtub, overdose on haldol. No big deal, since I was never really close to the guy. But I didn’t let my wife know that. Instead I blamed his death on her, and it gave form to my growing resentment. Now I had a great excuse to treat her with contempt.

Thus began a long career of drinking and carousing. I don’t recall actually having sex outside the marriage, however. My drinking was so severe that I really couldn’t get into those situations. Or at least, I could not recall them because of the repeated blackouts. (And you’d want to claim ‘blackout’ too if you saw some of those chicks.) Finally, finally. My wife called and told me that she wanted custody of the kid. Great news!  I was free!! Of course, I stopped drinking almost immediately. Yes the DTs were tough, but alleviated by the relief I felt from the lifting of this unfair burden.

I went to AA (for the umpteenth time) and discovered that it was the alcohol pouring itself down my throat that caused me to resent my wife and child and drunk drive and cheat on her, along with lots of other shenanigens. Now I am free of my wife, although we are friends now believe it or not. She actually bought this AA thing!

Now I can offer this solution to other men who don’t want to take responsibility for their lives. Yes, I embellish things like saying my brother died of alcoholism, but hey it was 30 years ago so I can’t be expected to remember all the details. But it definitely helps to magnify the power of alcohol.

So for all you desperate men out there, I have a wonderful message for you. You can continue to cheat on your wife and neglect your children. Just open a tab at your local liquor store and start drinking! Your wife will eventually leave you. And then you’ll be free! Then, by late-middle age, when sexing has become traumatic, you can return to AA and say that you finally “get it” and become a sanctimonious hypocrite like me. Just “find god” and “seek forgiveness”, and pass on the beautiful word to other desperate men.

AA worked great for me, and it can work for you too — if you work it!

AA makes me feel so free!

I’m a young guy with 45 days sober. My last binge was when I got upset with the gf for going out with her friends. So I stayed home and got really drunk. Then when she came home we got into a huge fight. The next day I realized that she threatens my sobriety when she comes home with alcohol on her breath. So I moved out and checked myself in to the very next AA meeting. Here I am 45 days later, still sober.

I love AA! It makes me feel so free! AA works great for me!

AA works great for me

I can’t stand the nagging wife and the whiny kids. So I just get really drunk after work and stay out as long as I can, hopefully after the kids are in bed (though how they can sleep through my drunken bellowing I don’t know). The old lady tells me to go to AA, so I do that whenever she throws me out on the street, and I do a couple steps, and apologize and promise to abstain, and then everything’s great for a few months, but then she does something to annoy me and I can’t help it but it makes me start drinking again. So I start drinking and staying out late. But that’s fine because I can’t stand them anyway, like I said.

AA works great for me, and in fact it’s the only thing that ever worked!

A conversation with addictions expert/rehab entrepreneur Dr. Drew Pinsky

Dr. Drew Pinsky (known familiarly as Dr. Drew) is the pre-eminent expert on drug addiction and alcoholism in this country.  He is most famous for his TV show Celebrity Rehab, whose patients boast a relapse rate below 80%, and a death rate below 15%.

AddictionMyth sat down recently with Dr. Drew for an intimate conversation conducted entirely by mental telepathy. Continue reading A conversation with addictions expert/rehab entrepreneur Dr. Drew Pinsky