The inspiration for this place happened during my early, barely-sober days when, only a couple of weeks out of a Florida rehab and not quite assimilated back into life in Brooklyn, I spent hours searching for stories or essays by struggling people. I wanted someone to tell me that the rusted-out way I was feeling would only be temporary. I’d spent most of my work-life writing on the internet and considered myself adept at researching, but I didn’t find my perfect story match; mostly just ads for more rehabs just like the one I’d left or news about Demi Lovato’s latest relapse.
I tried being more specific in my searches, like, “If I Take 20 Trazodone Pills Will I Overdose,” or “I Have 51 Days Sober And I Want To Throw Myself In Front of Truck,” and if I managed to find some old story on The Fix or another sober-themed site, most of their advertising space was occupied by–you guessed it–rehabs.
I was asking the internet for help in my new way of life outside of treatment, but it was trying very hard to make me go back there.
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Our space will not benefit or promote treatment centers, at least not directly through advertising. Treatment centers make way too much money and, remarkably, don’t have an efficacy rate high enough to justify the cost. Yet, when we think of recovery, we think of luxurious, spa-like rehabs. I say this as a person who actually had a reasonably successful rehab stint (the third time around, at least).
The goal here is to provide stories that offer up some temporary solace for those of us still figuring out how to navigate our new lives. The newsletter is full of triggers, full of prurience and pratfall, but also buckets full of perseverance.
Just an FYI, it’s not BAU, like “take a bow,” it’s BEAU, like “bow and arrow.”
So welcome to The Small Beau. We hope you love it as much as these people do.
Here’s who we are:
A.J. Daulerio, Editor/Founder
Edith Zimmerman, Illustrator
Leslie Jo Keyes, Copy Chief
We can be reached at editors@thesmallbow.com
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