When considering the themes of Denis Johnson’s collection of short stories entitled Jesus’ Son, it is important to bear in mind that Johnson himself struggled with alcoholism and addictions. Each story in the collection is a snapshot of the heroin addict narrator’s life. A short story in the collection entitled “Work” can be examined to reveal Johnson’s multifaceted perspective on addicts. The story’s plot, advanced by an early introduction of place and character paired with a non-linear narrative structure, allows for Johnson to call readers’ perceptions of addiction into question. The first two lines of the story provide enough detail to fully establish a sense of place. The narrator describes the setting as being late summer of 1973 in an emergency room, his current place of employment. The initial line provides a sense of the narrator’s flippant attitude towards his job, “I’d …show more content…
As suggested by the opening paragraph, “Work” unfolds with the narrator working in a hospital. One day, a man comes in after being stabbed in the eye. While the emergency room staff bustles to prepare a full team of doctors qualified to operate on the man, Georgie (while high) thoughtlessly pulls the knife from the man’s eye. Johnson steers away from the recklessness exhibited by Georgie in the medical story to talk about Georgie and the narrator’s experience after work that day. While riding out a high, the duo encounter a set of newborn bunnies. Georgie insists that he and the narrator must take care of the babies. Within a few hours, the bunnies die as a result of the narrator’s carelessness. Even though eight defenseless bunnies’ lives were lost a result of the narrator’s actions, the narrator confronts the situation with disregard and a lack of repentance (69). This portion of the plot supports the belief that drug addicts are incapable of functioning responsibly in
Joe Marcus Johnson is a professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets and He now plays for the Miami Heat. Johnson averaged 16.3 points per game, third best on a team that entered the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs seeded fourth in the Eastern Conference. He is one of the best NBA players from Arkansas (Joe Johnson (basketball).
“Alcohol addiction stunts the spiritual, emotional and mental growth of a person”~Anonymous. Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is a book based off the author’s teenage life. The novel is about a poor 14 year old named Junior who faced numerous challenges in his life. Junior has experienced bullying, he was called a traitor for following his dreams, got in a huge fight with his best friend and lost three very important people in his life because of alcohol. Fortunately in the end, Junior got through the pain and lived on but he learned many lessons. One of the lessons Junior learned was that the fall into addiction, in this situation alcohol, leads to a great deal of misery for the individual and those
Broken reveals the record of what occur between then and now—from growing up the privileged son of Bill Moyers to his birth into alcoholism and cocaine devotion, his numerous jobs at procurement clean, his many backslides, and how he managed to outlive a terrible time in his life. Harrowing and wrenching, Broken portray a painting of a people with every advantage who nonetheless found himself spiraling into a vile and vigor-threatening abysm. But unlike other memoirs of its bounteous, Broken emerges into the visible Life of Moyers’s revival as he dedicates his spirit to changing the politics of addiction. Beautifully written with an intense underlying heavenly-mindedness, this is a messenger of hope for the scores of Americans endeavor with
In the first chapter, we read about Bill’s story. Bill’s story describes his journey as an alcoholic and the struggles he faced in both his personal and professional life. Bill’s story genuinely gives a true insight into the struggles and challenges of addiction. His story is written in a way in which you are able to feel his isolation, loneliness, hopelessness, and loss. I personally found Bill’s story impactful and insightful. Through Bill’s words, I was able to gain an inside perspective into his thoughts and feelings about his ordeal and how he shifted from having no hope to having an entirely new world of hope revealed to him through what was essentially the start of Alcoholics Anonymous. The second chapter of our text seemed to me to be a call to anyone who was experiencing a
The book begins with the tale of how Dr. Hilfiker came to help alcoholics when he meets John Turnell. Hilfiker first met Turnell on the streets where he was suffering from the effects of his alcoholism. The problem is that Turnell was afraid of what would happen if he drops his one source of comfort and respite (alcohol) and Hilfiker, his physician, was afraid of what would happen if he does not. Hilfiker and his wife chose to uproot themselves and their family and move to Washington, DC, to begin work in the Community of Hope Health Services clinic for the poor and homeless. In the memoir, Hilfiker relates his experience as a physician and with DC's urban homeless and poor, many of whom were alcoholics (Hilfiker, 1994, 1-23).
Scott Russell Sanders’ “Under the Influence” is about a family growing up with alcoholism, mental and physical abuse. When Sanders was very young, he didn’t recognize that his father was an alcoholic, but as he grew older, he saw the bloodshot eyes, hiding alcohol, the deceptions, and the dual personalities of an alcoholic. “My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling.” (215). Sanders story starts at the end, where his father dies from alcoholism. The turmoil and fear this family suffered because of their father’s alcoholism, is a story a lot of families are familiar with.
Neil Johnson is a singer-songwriter from the northwestern, United States. Raised up from a family of traveling musicians, Neil has developed a passion for the pickup gig, the "show up and blow doors" mentality, the "where did this guy come from?!" league. It's gotten him into trouble and it's gotten him into the hearts of many who have had the pleasure of watching his performance.
Throughout the novel, Dominic’s heavy, and eventually unhealthy dependence on alcohol is talked about. After the death of Joe, Dominic “drinks himself to oblivion.” This display of Dominic’s reliance on alcohol reflects the idea of an Aussie Battler, a person who deals with adversity in the unconventional way of drinking alcohol instead of talking about it.
In his essay “Embraced by the Needle”, Gabor Maté argues that addiction is the consequence of lack of care of parents on their children at an early age, where those children were deprived of ‘soft warm hug’. Maté reinforces his argument by providing some of his own experiences with his patients, while working as a physician in Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, who helps mental people and addicts. Generally, this place is the “drug capital” as Maté writes in his essay.
Many people have come to believe that the murderer hit JonBenet's head with a flashlight causing her death.
In the book ‘Dry’, Augusten Burroughs gives us an insightful look into the life of someone who has been struggling with alcohol abuse. Augusten is just an average man in his twenties, he lives in Manhattan, New York, works in advertising, and has plenty of money. But there is one thing that makes him anything but. When an average man may be having one or two drinks, Augusten had eleven. His whole life revolved around alcohol. He would stay out going to bars all night, and never go home. At work you could smell the alcohol in his pores and his breath. With his job on the line, Augusten was asked to go to rehab.
Carver’s “A Serious Talk” is another short story that perfectly demonstrates the damaging affects of alcohol addiction on both the addict and those who surround them. In the story, a woman named Vera is visited by her ex-husband Burt, who arrives to give
In defining whether the portrayal of Rick’s use of alcohol is ethical, it is important to clarify what defines “ethical” in this context. In this essay, ethical is defined in society’s moral context. Alcoholism is traditionally perceived as wrong, and the portrayal of Rick’s alcohol abuse is
At the time, we were living in Johnson’s Corner in a trailer that we rented from the Harold’s. The Harold’s lived just up the old dirt road from us. I can see Mr. Harold coming down the road in his truck to run his hogs that were in the field next to us. My sister Renee had a Chow name Paco and I remember that we had to bring him inside when Mr. Harold rend the hogs. There was an old green car that sat in our yard. Once when we failed to get Paco in before the hogs where bing rend. Mr. Harold had a black boy who helped him. The boy was scared of Paco and Pacp knew this. I remember looking out the door seeing that boy on top of the old green car because Paco had got after him. Not long after that we were coming home one night and found
This book is basically about a young man who got addicted to drugs and alcohol and eventually recovered in the end after so many failures. William Cope Moyers had everything. This kid had a better childhood than others and family. He was raised in a very “proper” family where they would say grace during dinner and believed in God. Anyways, he had so many advantages and he tuned into a drug/alcohol addict which i couldn’t understand why at first. He began smoking marijuana, using alcohol, moved onto cocaine. He even left his wife and kids. That’s how obsessed he was. In the end, when he recovered and all became well he actually started helping other people who were addicts just like him.