Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the national best-selling novels “Prozac Nation” and “Bitch,” spoke and read from her memoir last night at the Boston University Barnes and Noble to promote “More. Now. Again: A Memoir of Addiction.”
The novel, Wurtzel’s second memoir, focuses on her struggle to recover from a Ritalin addiction. Wurtzel said she thought she was “the only idiot” that was crushing and snorting Ritalin pills to get high, but she later realized “kids on college campuses or even in high schools have been doing it for a while now.”
According to Wurtzel, her book is less about her battle with addiction and more about the road to her recovery. She said most memoirs about addiction “tend to tell the horrible story” and conclude shortly after the author ends up in rehab and recovers.
“I kind of wanted to tell a little bit more about what happens when you go through recovery because I guess people should know that you can do that and that it’s just not so bad,” she said.
Wurtzel’s own recovery can only be described as accidental, as she went to a rehab center in Connecticut with the intention of staying for “five days, just to clean up enough to … well, to clean up and actually maybe go back out and use again.”
She said her determination to “stay clean” kept her at a halfway house for three months.
Reading passages from a chapter of her book entitled “The Thrill is Gone,” Wurtzel described the rules and residents of the house and the bonds she formed with other recovering addicts.
Wurtzel pointed out that addicts come in all shapes and sizes as she rattled off the center’s residents, a list including an heiress, a janitor, a former model, a fireman, a bratty teenager from the Upper West Side and a construction worker. The only stereotype missing from the house, she said, was “the celebrity.”
Wurtzel read passages that added humor to subject matter she considered dull, dreary and depressing.
“The cottage subscribes to Sports Illustrated and U.S. News and World Report,” she read, “which are the two least likely periodicals any drug addict would read.”
Wurtzel also discussed the importance of depression as a major issue facing young Americans, a topic she raised in her previous memoir, Prozac Nation.
“It’s important to … get through these things because there’s a lot of people who are not living productive and good lives, who could be, because they’re mired in their own misery,” she said.
Joanna Kostka, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, attended the talk for her “Racism and Sexism” class. Kostka said she appreciated Wurtzel’s down-to-earth, open perspective on her addiction and depression.
“She’s not as big of an intellectual as people might think she is,” she said. “She’s just a normal person who has flaws and isn’t afraid to show them.”
Boston-area lawyer Zach Lang, who attended the talk with a friend, was one of a dozen or so males, but said he thought the subject matter was “maybe even more important for guys, because I think guys try to hide stuff like this more than women. Women are more open about what they say, and guys aren’t. I think the more guys come, the better it is.”
Lang, who said his sister has had problems similar to Wurtzel’s, said it is important for everyone to attend talks like this or read literature on the subject.
“The more people talk about it and discuss it, the more people will realize maybe they have a problem, and there will be more people to help them out,” he said.
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