Ted Pillow admires the late critic not just for his movie reviews, but for his often piercing insights into the nature of addiction (in 2009, Ebert revealed that he was a recovering alcoholic). Pillow has assembled “The Unofficial Roger Ebert Reader On Addiction,” pieced together from reviews and blog posts. One snippet:
The story of every drunk or addict is different in the details but similar in the outlines: Their days revolve around finding and using a sufficient supply of their substance of choice to avoid acute mental and physical discomfort. Eventually it gets to the point where everything else—job, family, self-image—is secondary. They all feel the need for something … the natural sources of pleasure have been replaced with higher-octane substitutes, which have burnt out the ability to feel joy. Going through the motions of what once gave them escape, they feel curiously trapped.
Another:
Why do alcoholics begin down the same hazardous road day after day? Any alcoholic knows that life is not all bad, that there comes a moment between the morning’s hangover and the night’s oblivion when things are balanced very nicely, and the sun slants in through the bar windows, and there’s a good song on the jukebox, and the customers might even start dancing. Each day is a window that opens briefly after the hangover and before the blackout, and you can never tell what you’ll see through that window. The alcoholic’s day consists of trying to keep that window open.
The Dish 