22 Comments
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Alix Klingenberg's avatar

Sobriety is why I am a writer now :) I heard a voice that said “quit drinking, start writing” and so I did!

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

I love this! Mine was “sepsis doesn’t happen in a day” courtesy of my father in a dream, who died of liver failure. xo

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Alix Klingenberg's avatar

Wow, that is powerful

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VedicSoul's avatar

Yes .. a good write-up, needs to be constantly floating around in the public domain as a reminder

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

Thank you 🙏

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Pixie Bruner's avatar

As a teetotaler because I dislike the way alcohol feels and tastes and can’t metabolize its genetically, I always have wondered about my drinking peers. I caffeinate to near extremes without anxiety but alcohol, even socially, has never appealed to me. I always accept drinks at cons and readings however, even if I choose coffee, chai or diet soda. It makes me oddly memorable and is a calling card they notice. As uninhibited, vulnerable, imaginative, intimate, surreal, and weird as my writing is, I don’t enjoy altered consciousness except for empathogens in controlled safe familiar rare occasions and settings taken as a shared sacrament only and with reverence. My writing references others who imbibe and I toast them, but feel boring in comparison for abstaining always 🤣. I insist my tools are sharp for emotional and spiritual and fantastical autopsies, I am terribly boring!

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

I love this and relate. I stopped drinking a few months ago, not because I never enjoyed it, but because I started to notice how much my body naturally rejected it. I’m also one of those people who can over-caffeinate with no problem but feel completely off with even one cocktail.

Lately I find there’s something powerful about being clear-headed in rooms where others are…loosening up.

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Pixie Bruner's avatar

I concur. I can document and archive the entire room, read it clearly, and be the peacemaker and and entertainment as well as know I read the room right and was sharp and at my best, personally.

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

Exactly!

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Jason M. O'Toole's avatar

Reconnecting with poetry and finally doing what Ginsberg told me to do back in 1991, finding my poetic community, is a gift of sobriety. I'd been in and out of AA since 1995 and finally landed in rehab before Xmas 2016, which is a sorry place to spend the holidays. I'd very much not like to detox again as it doesn't get easier and I was lucky not to die last time. As much as it's lovely to tap into my creativity so easily again, I must remember just how horrible my last drunk was and how unlikely it was that I survived.

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

Thank you for sharing that. I’m still being surprised how powerful poetry is, I’ve only been in this world for a few years, and I am also so grateful for it and the community we have!

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MJ Polk's avatar

Well done NJ I learned quite a bit. I'd like for you to do this for cannabis 😁

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

That’s a great idea 💚

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Amrita Skye Blaine's avatar

Right on. Or maybe, write on! Great job. I learned a lot about different areas of the brain.

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

Ha, yes. Write on!

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Amrita Skye Blaine's avatar

😁

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Todd Christopher Thurman's avatar

Great Content, nice questions posed to "creatives". Are you one who uses A. I. to organize and visually structure content. Because this is very tight and visually accessible.

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

Hi Todd, I chose the word creatives bc it's inclusive. I appreciate the compliment, although it's being received as slightly backhanded. Structure and design is where I excel, Its my favorite part of the process. I have been designing webpages and using code for about 20 years. I genuinely enjoy the process and that goes the same for writing. But, to answer your question, no I wrote this and every other article I post.

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Todd Christopher Thurman's avatar

In a way ... I'm very glad you received it as backhanded, that means another great writer is not choosing to sharpen their work with robotics! Be very complimented. Your work was so well-layed out, it seemed perfect, the way bots often do it!

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

Because you said my writing is like AI, but AI is trained on Writers.

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NJ Simat 🤍's avatar

The thing is, bots are trained on writers. But I will try to take it as a compliment.

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Todd Christopher Thurman's avatar

Confused … so you are or are not against writers cooperating with A. I. to create their work? If you’re for it … why be troubled if I asked if you used it? If your against it … why point out that it’s training on our material as writers?

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