No Time for ,s

No Time for Commas is an alcoholic story for the vigilant reader. Forged in simplicity and fired with metaphor, it examines both the nature and the heart of addiction. It is nostalgic and personal, yet reflective, glued with shared human feelings and timeless principles. It is, plainly stated, about living life fully and finally loving the thumbprints one was given.

Sober or drunk, all alcoholics and addicts have trouble with perception and reality. But, alcoholics don't wake up one morning as a child and suddenly know that they are alcoholic; they are busy being children, and -- like other children -- are innocent until they are one day, unfairly, yet inevitably, stained by life. Alcoholics don't show up in high school and calculate a life of addiction and failure; they are busy learning about love, needing acceptance and masking a fear of humanness.

As addiction ages, fueled with immaturity, the childlike sip of a first drink and the buzz of a young party have faded. The alcoholic mind is now rage, isolation, darkness and hopelessness - or perhaps, deluded hope. There is no comma to this drink. The alcoholic also knows he's hiding shame with a growing mask, and drinks more to know of it. More drinks, more shame. More shame, more mask. With God, or without Him, this man is alone. But then, for some reason...he stops.

This is not a "how-to" book, though "how-to" can be found in it. This is not a book about darkness, though darkness has a deep purpose in it. This is not a book about light, though its light is unquenchable. This is a book about life. It is a book about whirlwinds becoming tornadoes, hopelessness becoming isolation and brokenness becoming a peaceful still. It is a glimpse at finding soul mates and of honest human mirrors.

It is not a story of getting sober and life being grand. It is a look back after some years of sober experience. It is a book about awakening, and reawakening...about hope, hopelessness, getting back up, doing it again...a day at a time, a pause at a time, an action at a time - relearning life itself - until you are true to your thumbprints.

People stop drinking every day. You can stop. Your child or your loved one can stop. This book offers that pause, that comma. Addiction knows no commas. Sobriety is one...shaped amazingly like one's own, slightly bent, uniquely printed, upwardly pointed, thumb.

D. Steven Russell is a native Kansan who now resides in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Russell wrote only poetry and music for a decade, and then stopped writing entirely. No Time for Commas unveils as a deeply human and richly poetic narrative--his first work in 25 years.