{"id":21998,"date":"2018-03-14T10:56:38","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T17:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=21998"},"modified":"2018-03-14T10:56:38","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T17:56:38","slug":"eirinn-go-tirim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=21998","title":{"rendered":"\u00c9irinn go Tirim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0171\"<\/a>A friend sent a link to a New York Times Magazine article titled “Does Recovery Kill Great Writing?<\/a>” Alas, I’ve used up my free clicks for the month and can’t read it; I include the link here in case you still have some and want to read it.<\/p>\n

If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the work of a writer who recently quit drinking, and that it cites cases of famous authors whose output slowed to a trickle after they turned their backs on Demon Rum.<\/p>\n

Now you can say I’m not a writer (far less a great one) because I haven’t had a book published and am thus not qualified to comment, but I’ll turn around and ask what do you think this blog is? It’s my book, a work in progress, and if it’s self-published, so what? Have you heard of Hugh Howey<\/a>? I’m getting there.<\/p>\n

I’ve always loved writing. It occurred to me I might have trouble writing once I quit drinking, but in my case at least, I didn’t. I probably write more now than I did when I was drinking, and I don’t think my writing is any different. Maybe better. It’s tempting to say, to those who claim they can’t write sober, that they’re making excuses for their addiction, but I know better. I’ve been around a lot of alcoholics, and it’s different for everyone.<\/p>\n

I was drunk a lot of the time back in the day. Now I’m not drunk any of the time, ever. I wrote then and I write now. A lot of writers and artists struggle without alcohol and I’m thankful that didn’t happen to me. I thank my lucky stars. Every day.<\/p>\n

Some things are different, of course. I don’t hang around in bars and I don’t like being around drunks. I used to do a lot of that. I don’t tell many jokes these days, and I no longer sing or collect bawdy songs, once one of my favorite hobbies.<\/p>\n

It didn’t dawn on me until just now that I quit drinking in March, 2007, right around Saint Patrick’s Day. I played around with the famous St. Patrick’s Day toast, \u00c9irinn go Br\u00e1ch, to come up with a title for this post (Google tells me “tirim” is “dry” in Irish).<\/p>\n

I wonder, did my friend know I mark the anniversary on this blog every March when he sent me that link? Whether he did or not, I appreciate the reminder!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend sent a link to a New York Times Magazine article titled “Does Recovery Kill Great Writing?” Alas, I’ve used up my free clicks for the month and can’t read it; I include the link here in case you still have some and want to read it. If I had to guess, I’d say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,2089,2262,2069,669],"class_list":["post-21998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-anniversary","tag-drinking","tag-sobriety","tag-st-patricks-day","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21998"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22010,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21998\/revisions\/22010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}