To stories woven from clichés in the form of a descent into hell and redemption, Marie Darsigny opposes Again, the nuanced account of his own relationship with alcohol and drugs. A tragic, funny and intelligent book, which cements its special place in Quebec literature.
“Mentally, I am already preparing for the reception of the work, for the interviews which will want me to repent, for the interlocutors who will think me thoughtful”, announces in the first pages ofAgain Marie Darsigny, who is reminded of this passage from her new book.
She bursts out laughing. “It’s mostly that I don’t want to start promoting sobriety,” warns the one who nevertheless admits not having drunk alcohol or taken drugs for two years. “I also don’t want to start giving my opinion on 12-step groups. »
If Marie Darsigny refuses to play repentance, it is therefore less because she embodies the exact opposite, than because she is sorry that there is no such thing as public self-flagellation and proudly untamed intoxication. other possible discourse on addiction.
“There would be no in-between: either you are a victim of your addiction, or you cling to it out of rebellion. However, each story is a unique portrait of ambivalence, trials, efforts, abandonments, strength and vulnerability, “writes the one who reconnects with the tone of her cult book. Thirty (2018), in which the “sad girl” in residence of Quebec literature documented what she believed to be her last year of life.
Again, his “tale of quiet drug addiction”, is not an anti-alcohol pamphlet either. ” At first [de son abstinence], I always wanted to denounce the SAQ and the culture of alcohol. Now I’m more relaxed, because I’m aware that I’m the one who constantly goes back to substances, but I don’t forget that in a capitalist society, alcohol is a product like any other, that we constantly tries to reinvent to sell it better to us. »
A life problem
“I don’t understand, though, you’re smart!” You know it’s not good for you. You know you should stop. Marie Darsigny has lost count of the number of friends and doctors who have struck her with this sentence of rare violence.
“It’s a really paternalistic phrase, but above all it’s misunderstanding what psychological suffering is,” replies the one who, following the American writer Elizabeth Wurtzel, says with that irresistible black humor that is hers. not having had an alcohol and drug problem, but a “life problem”.
I know that there are people who, on the outside, think that I am a small nature, but I am convinced that I am not the only one to find that tough the life. I’m sure I’m not the only one who had an epiphany drinking alcohol and realizing that you can suddenly feel better than how you feel in everyday life.
Marie Darsigny
Problem = solution
Reflection on all that contributes socially to excessive consumption, diary of a party girl for whom youth has never happened, story of a recovery that has not been peaceful, Again is like Thirty, a rebellious and unclassifiable book. Between autofiction, poetry and essay, it abounds with references belonging as much to high culture as to what is described as its opposite.
Marie Darsigny remains, with Daphné B., one of the rare Quebec writers in whom quoting an academic and the competitor of a reality show does not in any way resemble a contradiction, and for whom refusing to adhere frankly to a literary genre is a way of welcome in his works all that life has in gray areas.
It is therefore logical that her book pleads for addiction not to be considered as one disease among many others, not because she believes that people who suffer from it always have full control over their situation, but because there is “a tension between our will and what is above us and against which we cannot fight. »
The overmedicalization of addiction is part of the overmedicalization of everything in our society. This is how our healthcare system is built. We look so much for simple answers, because they are satisfying. It’s satisfying to have a problem and a solution.
Marie Darsigny
It is without counting, she adds, that the impotence implied by the word illness will have allowed some stars facing accusations of various kinds to clear up regrettable gestures by brandishing their ID card.addict. “And then it gives all addicts a bad name. »
Since Again defends the idea that there are a thousand ways to live one’s abstinence, a thousand shades of gray between the life of Amy Winehouse and that of a cloistered sister, why did you choose to say so clearly that sachets and bottles are no longer part of his daily life?
“Because as there would have been a certain hypocrisy in pretending that I stopped if it were not true, answers Marie Darsigny, it would have been hypocritical not to write that I stopped and that today , this is the life I want. »
Again
Marie Darsigny
Hustle Editions
176 pages