Releasing Stigma, Distilling Truth
This is the work of Jewish Lobster.
Releasing the stigma means:
I am an alcoholic. Present tense. Proudly.
Not because I glorify the damage or romanticize the crisis, but because alcoholism gave me something I couldn't find any other way: an unbearable reality that forced me to finally look directly at the architecture that built me.
Without alcoholism, I'd still be “functional”. Still performing. Still dying slowly from the inside while looking fine from the outside. Still convinced my worth depended on disappearing into whatever shape others needed.
Alcoholism made that impossible. And that impossibility saved my life.
Releasing stigma means: claiming the identity without shame, recognizing the crisis as necessary, and understanding that the path through addiction can be a path toward freedom.
Distilling the truth means:
Looking directly at the childhood topography where my personal cipher for alcoholism was encoded. Not in obvious places—dramatic trauma, clear abuse—but in the nooks and crannies. The daily patterns. The subtle injuries. The repeated adaptations that built a False Self so convincing I thought it was just me.
The undiagnosed ADHD nobody noticed. The intrinsic parental authority I couldn't question. The empathy that got weaponized against me. The performance that earned love while presence stayed optional.
Each of these—small on their own—accumulated into an architecture that made alcoholism adaptive. Made it look like a solution, not a problem. Made it feel like a dream job, not destruction.
Distilling truth means: examining the mechanisms without shame or blame. Understanding how the traps work. Recognizing the parts and their jobs. Seeing clearly enough that you can take the trap apart.
The work happens concurrently:
Releasing stigma creates space to distill truth. Distilling truth releases more stigma. The seeing and the changing happen together.
That's the methodology. That's Jewish Lobster.
Not a program to follow. Not steps to work. But a framework for understanding traps so clearly you can't get stuck in them again.
Because you can't get stuck in the same (lobster) trap once you take it apart.
Jewish Lobster is:
Recovery Heresy: I'm in recovery, critiquing recovery culture. Using the tools, questioning the dogma.
Epistemological Inquiry: How do we know what we know? What's the relationship between understanding and action? Why do smart people stay stuck?
Zen Paradox: The trying that isn't trying. The doing that isn't forcing. The self that builds itself by letting go.
Jewish Questioning: Wrestling with truth like Jacob with the angel. Arguing with certainty. Finding meaning through doubt.
ADHD in the Age of Optimization: The gap between knowing and doing. Execution as spiritual practice.
Weekly essays (philosophy meets recovery)
Meditation notes (what actually happens on the cushion)
Existential field reports (choosing in the face of meaninglessness)
A few reasons for this:
Recovery: Public practice. Accountability for action, not just insight.
Truth-seeking: Somewhere between Zen's "don't know mind" and recovery's "rigorous honesty" and Judaism's "argue with everything" is something worth exploring…together…with you :)
Service: If even one person reads this and feels less alone in their intelligent suffering or can skip some of the steps I stumbled through, that's enough.
Why "Jewish Lobster"?
Lobster is treif—forbidden, non-kosher, shouldn't exist in Jewish law.
From my lifetime embodying such existential tension, the compounding paradox is the most fruitful pursuit:
Recovery + philosophical critique
Meditation + action-orientation
Zen acceptance + Jewish argument
Existential freedom + 12-step structure
The Jewish Lobster is a sieve for the separation of wisdom from the water, bottom up.