The top 10 books about addiction
Sex, food, envy, drugs, dreams and drink: addiction is never simple and rarely forgotten.
SJ Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep and now Second Life, shares his top 10 titles
性，飲食，嫉妒，藥品，夢想和飲料：成癮永遠不會那麼簡單且很少被遺忘。
別相信任何人(Before I Go To Sleep) 和新著 第二人生 (Second Life )的作者 SJ 沃森，
分享他認為成癮必讀的前10名之作
Wasted … Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar SJ Watson
伊旺·麥奎格 在猜火車中 消瘦病態
From the Guardian , Wednesday 11 February 2015 09.00 GMT
I’d been working on my second novel for a while before I realised what it was really about.
I’d been thinking about online lives, about how social networking allows us to present multiple
versions of ourselves to the world, identities that are both highly curated and tightly controlled.
At the same time, I’d been musing on how our sense of self is never really fixed, yet we tell
ourselves one historical narrative, constantly rewritten to make sense of the changes in our
lives. It can be all too easy to look back on the person that we “used to be”, on the
road-no-longer-travelled, with a fondness and regret that are often misplaced.
在意識甚麼是真正關心前我埋首在我的第二本小說一陣子了。我一直在思考網路線上生活，
關於網絡社會如何讓我們在世界中呈現多個版本的自己，身份很容易高度策劃和嚴格控制。
與此同時，我一直在沉思我們的自我意識從沒有真正固定過，但我們告訴自己一項歷史
敘事，持續不斷的改寫，使我們的生活變化有意義。它可以很容易回頭看看，我們“曾經是”
甚麼樣，在不再遊歷的路上，喜歡和遺憾，常常錯置。
I realised that it was this multiplicity of self that I wanted to write about. A character, Julia, began
to emerge, but the wheels were still spinning until a friend said to me, “You know, addiction is a
very patient disease.” That one phrase became the key that unlocked the novel; I began to see
addiction as something cunning, lying in wait, biding its time. I realised it would form the backbone
of the book: Julia would be a recovering addict, someone haunted by her past, yet also in some
way nostalgic for it. She would come to see the internet as a means to explore the life she might
have had, not realising that conquering one addiction does not mean conquering them all. Like
many of us, her battle would ultimately be with herself. Here, then, are my top 10 books featuring addiction, in some form or other.
我意識到，我想寫這種多重的自我。一個人物，朱莉婭，遂開始嶄露頭角，車輪仍在運轉，直
到一個朋友對我說，“你知道，酖癮是一種非常有耐心的疾病。”這一句話成為了解鎖小說的
關鍵;我開始看上癮這東西 狡猾，趴著等待，等待時機。我意識到這將構成本書的主幹：朱莉婭
將是一個開始邁向復元的沉癮者，有人用她的過去困擾她，但也以某種方式懷念它。她會看看
互聯網以作為探索她可能有的人生，卻沒有意識到征服一項酖癮並不意味著征服所有的沉溺。
像我們許多人一樣，她最終將與自己戰鬥。那麼，這裡是我選的10本書，以某種形式或其他
展現其成癮性。
1. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
All addiction is an avoidance of pain, and in this book Ruth – labelled “She-Devil” by her
philandering husband and determined to live up to the title – avoids hers by undertaking a series
of meaningless sexual encounters once he leaves her for Mary. But ultimately her addiction is not
to sex: she is doing it only to anaesthetise herself to intimacy. Unable to forgive, she has dedicated
her entire self to first destroying, and then becoming, her rival. Envy is her addiction, then. That,
and revenge.
1. 魔女的復仇 / 菲.維爾登(Fay Weldon)著 ; 林靜華譯
所有的成癮是為迴避痛苦，在這本書裡 露絲 - 題標“她為惡魔”源自她丈夫的拈花惹草，
而決心展開復仇 - 經過展開一系列的無意義性接觸衝突以避開她，他終究為了瑪麗離開她。
但最終她的耽癮不是為了性：她做這件事只是為了麻木自己而有親密關係。因無法原諒，
她全心致力於她自己的首要作為是先自我破壞，再成為她的對手。羨慕使她沉溺，然後，
也就是說，復仇。
2. The Shining by Stephen King
Jack Torrance, an ex-alcoholic, thinks he’s on safe ground when he spends the winter in a hotel
whose bars are empty. But the hotel has other ideas and it’s not long before a ghostly bartender is serving him gin that is all too real, opening the doors to the return of the alcoholism he thought he’d conquered. A lesson in the vigilance necessary if an addiction is to remain beaten, made all the
more poignant for King’s own battles with alcohol.
2.《鬼店》（The Shining，1977年）美國作家史蒂芬·金著
傑克·托倫斯，一名前酒鬼，當這個冬天他待在一家酒店裡空蕩蕩的酒吧度過時他認為他是在
安全的地方。但酒店本身卻有其他的想法，這不久以前一個鬼魂酒保為他倒杜松子酒實在是太
真實了，他以為他已經征服了酗酒的回報卻又打開酗酒大門。如果成癮保持活躍那一個教訓是
必要的警惕，國王自身與酒精之役則更加淒美。
Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/WARNER BROS/Allstar/
Cinetext/WARNER BROS
傑克·尼科森在鬼店 場景。
3. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
Bleakly comic, this tells the story of Victor, a man who has sex in order to avoid life, rather than
embrace it, and as a distraction from his damaged relationship with his mother. And where does
this sex addict go to find partners? Sex-addiction support groups, of course. Like I said, bleakly
comic.
3.長篇小說《窒息》(Choke) 恰克·帕拉尼克 著
抑鬱的喜劇人物，這個訴說維克多，他擁性愛是為了躲開生命，而不是欣然接受它的故事，且
他與母親的關係危害而焦躁不安。而這性癮者去那裡尋找合作夥伴？到性癮的支持團體，當然。
就像我說的，抑鬱的喜劇人物。
4. Gordon by Edith Templeton
Banned in the 1960s, and largely based on true events, this is an extraordinarily brave book. It’s
the story of a young woman’s submissive affair with an older man who picks her up in a pub and to whom she surrenders almost everything. Perhaps not a story of addiction as much as of obsession, nevertheless this cold, almost dispassionate book, tells of a life overtaken in ways both unexpected
and unlooked for, and deserves a place on this list.
4. 慾望的盛宴 愛娣思．譚普騰（Edith Templeton）
決大部份基於真實事件而在20世紀60年代被禁止，這是一本非常勇敢的書。描述一個年輕女人順
從一位從酒吧接了她的年長男人的情欲且幾乎臣服他所有的事。也許不像是一個沉癮反而像是痴迷
的故事，僅管如此這本冷酷，幾乎不帶感情的書，講述了一個生活突然遭受到意想不到且未被期待
的方式，值得在這個名單上佔有一席之地。
5. Love Junkie: A Memoir by Rachel Resnick
The story of Resnick’s addiction to “undesirable, dangerous men”, this book skilfully articulates the reasons she found herself hooked on bad relationships, and the ways in which she was replaying
the patterns of her childhood. It’s raw and honest, difficult but worthwhile.
5.愛情癮君子：回憶錄 瑞秋雷斯尼克 著
這本書關於雷斯尼克對“不受歡迎，危險的人”成癮的故事，巧妙地闡明，她發現自己愛上此種
不良關係的原因，且此方法讓她得以重演童年模式。這是原始的，誠實的，困難的，但值得。
6. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
At heart, this is a book about friendship, but featuring friends bonded through addiction. Heroin
features heavily, but Welsh shows us the spectrum of addictive behaviours. We have sex, theft,
and most memorably Begbie, who considers himself morally superior to his “junkie” friends, even
though he is addicted to amphetamines, alcohol and violence. It’s dark, deceptively complex, and
shines with humanity for the characters it refuses to condemn.
6.猜火車 歐文·威爾士 著
實際上，這是一本關於友誼，但其特別的是朋友藉著成癮結合。Heroin 的特色很沉，但 Welsh
向我們展示了成癮行為的頻譜。我們有性行為，盜竊，最難忘的是貝格比，即使他沉迷於安
非他命，酒精和暴力，他認為自己在道德上優越於他的“毒癮迷”朋友。這是黑暗的，看似
複雜，閃耀著人道卻並不譴責人物。
7. Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher
7. 消瘦：厭食症和貪食症的回憶錄 瑪麗亞 Hornbacher 著
Addiction usually concerns excess, rather than denial, and I hesitated before including this
unflinching account of Hornbacher’s battles with a severe eating disorder in the list. But it strikes
me that her story of obsessive control, of an overwhelming need to do something even though
one knows it might ultimately kill you, is as much about addiction as anything else. It’s essential
reading for anyone who still believes eating disorders are just about how thin someone wants
to look.
成癮通常是涉及過多，而不是拒絕，我將這個 Hornbacher 對嚴重的飲食失調症堅毅之戰鬥納
入榜單之前猶豫了。但是我覺得她的關於強迫症控制慾故事中，勢不可檔般需要去做些事，即
使有人知道它可能最終會殺了你，就像成癮之於任何事般。對任何仍然認為飲食失調只是對那
些想減肥的人才需要看的人來說這更是必讀的。
8. Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby, Jr
Everyone has dreams, and in this book everyone becomes addicted to trying to attain theirs.
Sara wants to be thin enough to look good on television and ends up addicted to the amphetamines
in her diet pills. Her son and his friends want to raise money and end up addicted to the heroin they
were planning to sell. It’s pretty strong stuff.
8.夢之安魂曲/ 迷上癮 休伯特·塞爾比，JR 著
每個人都有夢想，在這本書裡每個會變為成癮者是因其試圖實現他們的願望。薩拉想瘦到足以
讓她在電視上看起來好看,但最終沉迷於在她的減肥藥裡的安非他命。她的兒子和他的朋友想籌
集資金，最後卻對他們計劃出售的海洛因上癮。這真是非常強大的東西。
Hubert Selby Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream.
Photograph: K.C. BAILEY/AP
休伯特·塞爾比 JR ，最後退出布魯克林和夢之安魂曲作者。照片：K.C。 BAILEY/ AP
9. The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll
The story of Carroll’s adolescent years in New York, his high-school basketball career,
and his addiction to heroin, which began when he was 13 years old. It’s an edited version
of the diaries he kept at the time, and is incredibly frank and extraordinarily intimate.
9.邊緣日記 (赤子本色) 吉姆·卡羅爾 著
這是卡羅爾青少年時期在紐約的故事，他的高中籃球事業生涯，他才13歲就開始對海
洛因上癮。在當時他一直維持用編輯的描述寫日記，令人難以置信的坦率和非常深入。
10. In My Skin by Kate Holden
This is a beautifully written account of Kate’s journey from a comfortable middle-class life in
the suburbs of Melbourne, via an addiction to heroin, to a life of prostitution. It’s far from
self-pitying, and her description of the pride she took in her work, which some may feel is at
odds with her feminism, is deeply affecting. Her next book, The Romantic, continues the story
as Kate begins to rediscover herself in Rome.
10.切膚之受 由凱特·霍爾登 著
這是本文字優美的文本描寫凱特在墨爾本郊區過著舒適的中產階級生活，卻因海洛因上癮，
糟蹋生活的旅程。這遠離自憐，她形容她自豪地參與了她的工作，有些人可能覺得和她的
女權運動不和，深受影響。她的下一本書，The Romantic，延續了故事，凱特在羅馬開始
重新找回自己。
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