This week, Katie Herzog explains how marijuana helped wean her off alcohol. Read that and others from Broadly, Dame Magazine, Love, InshAllah, and more.
"I Used to Be an Alcoholic. Now I’m a Stoner Who Has a Drink Sometimes." — BuzzFeed Ideas
For Katie Herzog, marijuana wasn't a gateway to harder drugs — it was an exit ramp from her addiction to alcohol. Before she started smoking, she'd attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and tried outpatient group therapy, to no avail. For BuzzFeed Ideas, she explains how marijuana helped wean her off alcohol. "I realized I would rather be at home smoking pot on my couch," she writes. "The reason I went out to bars ... was because I was always afraid that I would miss out on something — that something, anything, would happen. But the reality is, nothing ever did. So I did something I’d never been able to do before: I left the bar." Read it at BuzzFeed Ideas.
Kiersten Essenpreis for BuzzFeed News
"When White Poets Pretend to Be Asian" — The New Yorker
When Yi-Fen Chou, honored in Best American Poetry 2015, turned out to be a white poet from Indiana, the world was quite rightly outraged. In a New Yorker piece, Hua Hsu attempts to make sense of the madness. "When it comes to such hoaxes, it seems somehow easier to fake Asia, a land still distant and inscrutable to many Americans," he writes. "While other hoaxes work because of their thoroughness and care, the Asian-themed sort often get by with only a few details, as long as those details seem just 'Asian' enough." Read it at The New Yorker.
Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty / Via newyorker.com
"Burritos, Big Macs, and Beer: How I Binged My Way to Oblivion in College" — The Guardian
When you leave home, the only person responsible for you is in fact you. Scaachi Koul, who grew up in a protective household, learned this during her first year of college, a time when even cooking for herself was a challenge. For The Guardian, she writes, "When you’re young, you get your self-worth, your cues on self-care, from the people around you. My mom wrapped me in the most intense and restrictive of parental love. When I left, I had no idea how to provide that same love for myself. I wasn’t sure I deserved it either." Read her piece on self-love at The Guardian.
Alamy Stock Photo / Via theguardian.com
"Why I Don’t Date White Men" — Love, InshAllah
When Tanzila Ahmed graduated high school, she did not find Bangladeshi men attractive and was convinced she'd marry a white guy. 10 years after a long-term relationship with a white man, she has not dated one since. For Love, InshAllah, Ahmed explains what it's like to date a white man as a woman of color. "You never really thought of yourself as poor, but in this relationship you suddenly notice how you were raised with less than." Read it at Love, InshAllah.
Tanzila Ahmed / Via loveinshallah.com