> In his acknowledgments, he thanks his wife for “putting up with all the sacrifices involved in having a partner with a troubling addiction to writing books,”

You'd think there'd be fewer sacrifices involved, given that he's mostly just writing one book, multiple times. /s

knowing oneself is hard but rewarding work and for me requires self-doubt and criticism and the action that comes out of that, it’s a non-terminating cycle. sometimes peace and joy are involved, many times not. some of these affirmations could be useful, but I’ve always had issues with this overly gentle and kind of self-delusional approach. The road to self-actualization is not opened up by repeatedly telling yourself that what you wish were true is true.

who is this stuff actually targeted at?

I’ve heard a few so far!

I didn't hear any "and so on, and so on.."

can confirm that this is not universally true.

Bringing another life into this world is maybe one of the worst ways a person would try to solve depression

The 12-pack-in-a-weekend part makes me think you’ve got a problematic relationship with alcohol. You might start with an examination of why you’d choose to do that on a particular weekend instead of something else. I spent a decade ramping up to about 5 beers a day, and it initially had a lot to do with anxiety and feeling trapped in a life that wasn’t fulfilling to me. Even after I addressed those things aggressively, the drinking remained. I failed to control it every day. Only until I could visibly see the effects it was having on my body was I able to quit. I quit because of vanity!

It is hard to offer universally good advice on this, but because I personally can’t drink moderately, maintaining an intentional and holistic relationship with myself is the way I’m able to stay off it. I try to remember that regular life as a goldmine far more rewarding than alcohol.

Last thing: self-hatred and alcoholism go hand-in-hand, so find ways to treat yourself well, whether you drank too much or not.

Good luck :)

I beg to disagree. Self-hatred is always negative and certainly does not correlate with any particular behavior. Does being hooked on doughnuts and ice-cream go hand-in-hand with self-hatred? What is so special about alcohol versus porn or sugar or Pokemon or Amazon Prime or Netflix?

I applaud your self-awareness and realization that you personally cannot drink moderately but must reject the assertion that there are such things as "regular life" and "alcoholism". Define these states of being...

... except you can't.

A person with that attitude doesn’t need a perfect list of books, they need to live more of their life. Fiction will likely find them when they’re ready for it. Seems futile to try to convince them otherwise, if they’re presently writing off fiction and film.