Russell Brand And A Sobering Reminder… About Sobriety

Sure, sobriety is great. But…

Trigger warning: This article discusses sexual assault.

When news broke earlier this week that comedian, actor, and media personality Russell Brand has been accused of rape and sexual assault by four women, I was not shocked.

To be clear, I believe in due process and I am disinclined to try anyone in the court of public opinion. Brand denies the reports. We have yet to learn the full truth of what has taken place.

But we can have thoughts about what may have taken place. And my thoughts are this: I am inclined to believe these reports.

I repeat, I am not shocked.

But I am sad. Just because I believe there’s a strong possibility that these reports are true doesn’t mean that I want them to be true.

I never want such reports to be true of anybody.

But in Brand’s case, his status as a sobriety guru adds an extra layer here, as well as a painful reminder about sobriety — a reminder that I sometimes don’t want to face.

I read Brand’s book *Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions in early 2018, when I decided to stop drinking for 100 consecutive days. This was a huge undertaking for me, and for support and inspiration and commiseration, I seized all the “quit lit” I could find.

My memory of the book is hazy. It’s certainly not my favourite in this genre, or the story of recovery I related to the most.

Brand’s life and experience, from his troubled youth to the depth and breadth of his addictions (drugs, alcohol, food, and yes, sex) to his outsized celebrity could not be more disparate from my own.

His writing is dense and lyrically beautiful at times, if a little rambling. I admired his intellect, his forthrightness about his personal struggles and shortcomings, and his efforts to overcome said struggles and shortcomings (I know).

Most of all, I was struck by his outreach to addicts. While I giggled a little at the image this conjured for me — the bearded, sinewy Brand roaming the streets of London in a caftan with his arms outstretched, fancying himself some kind of a Christ figure — I couldn’t deny that the work he was doing was right and good. His heart was in the right place, or so it seemed.

I was left with a mostly warm feeling about Brand, a feeling I chose to preserve by not diving too deeply into his other work. Yes, I heard the rumblings that he was a conspiracy theorist, a narcissist, high on his own supply, a spouter of nonsense, possibly teetering on the brink of sanity — if not dangling a foot over.

It’s not that I didn’t believe these rumblings. Charitably put, Brand is a character. But I chose to turn a deaf ear to them because I had soft spot for the guy — caftan and outstretched arms and all — and I wanted to keep it that way.

I also wasn’t sure how much any of it mattered. Sure, he has some extreme ideas about mainstream media and vaccines and health and wellness and so on. He also has a large and loyal following.

But has he done more harm than good? How do you quantify any of it? How can you solve such equations when the value of x, y, and z are unknown?

I’m no mathematician or ethicist, only an armchair philosopher. And from my armchair, it seems that Brand has done a lot of service in the name of sobriety.

But now I find myself asking: What has sobriety done for Russell Brand?

Brand has not used drugs or alcohol since 2002.

The reports against him are of incidents that happened between the years 2006–2013. Meaning that he was clean and sober at the time that he allegedly committed the assaults of which he has been accused.

Meaning that — if we believe these reports (and remember, I do) — Brand’s sobriety did not give him the clarity or good sense or common decency to not abuse women.

I have been sober for almost four years. This is a drop in the ocean compared to Brand’s two decades. But it’s certainly enough time to get a full picture of sobriety’s effect on my life.

The effect has been good. Very, very good.

I have written extensively about the ways in which quitting alcohol has improved my life — and improved me. You’re probably all sick of it and I’m not going to bore you again here.

However, I’ve written far less about the struggles that continue to dog me, even with the booze monkey off my back. My life is better, but not perfect.

I am better, but far from perfect.

I wrestle with anxiety on a daily basis. I soothe myself with some unhealthy compulsions and needs — dopamine, food, the pursuit of external validation, extensive Sex And The City binges.

I procrastinate. I am terrified of failure. I am, at the age of 52, still not sure what to be when I grow up. I am prone to playing a constant negative feedback loop in my head, and it often keeps me up at night.

I have crashed in my reading chair at three in the afternoon with the intention of playing a single game of Best Fiends on my phone, only to look up when the kids start asking me what’s for dinner.

I am plagued by self-doubt. By worry. By laziness. By existential pain. I sometimes doubt that I will ever make something of myself or contribute to the world in any meaningful way.

Oh, and I eat too much. Like, all the time.

I am not comparing myself to Brand.

The addictions that remained after he got sober (presumably sex was one of them) obviously run much deeper and, as evidence suggests, have a much more destructive effect on him and others than mine ever did (or do).

But I think we have this in common: We knew we had to quit drinking. But even after we quit, the underlying causes of our alcohol misuse were still there.

The anxiety, the fears, the emptiness I’ve never quite been able to fill — they haven’t gone away.

But do I see them clearly now, in a way I couldn’t have when I was moving about in alcohol’s fog.

And I work on them from this clarity, and from the knowledge that I can overcome hard things. Sobriety may not have solved these problems, but I can’t solve them without sobriety.

Sobriety is only a jumping off point. I still have to swim.

But what about Brand?

If we are to believe the version of him we meet in his 2018 book, he has vanquished a lot of his demons — not just the drugs and alcohol, but, eventually, the food and the sex and the hunger for external validation too.

But who really knows?

My guess is that getting sober was also his jumping off point, but that the waters he landed in were much darker and more turbulent than mine.

He is still flailing.

I’ve said it a million times: Sobriety is great. It’s the bomb. I recommend it.

But this, I’ve barely said at all: Yeah, sure, sobriety is great. For many, it’s the right and necessary thing.

But it’s not the only thing.

It’s not the only thing at all.

*This is not an affiliate link. In fact, I hesitated to provide a link to Brand’s book at all. I am certainly not promoting him or his work at this juncture. In the end, I decided to include it for informational purposes.