"Recovery is whatever makes you feel less bad": 5 Questions for The Small Bow founder A.J. Daulerio

Daulerio discusses how he thinks about psychedelics and recovery.

In 2016, A.J. Daulerio completed a stint at a Florida rehab facility, and left feeling severely depressed. “I typed into Google, ‘I’m 50 days sober, how do I not go run into traffic?’” he says. “What came up were ads for more rehab programs, the suicide hotline, and an AP story about Demi Lovato.” It was then that he started thinking about what would eventually become The Small Bow, a wide-ranging publication on recovery, sobriety, substance misuse issues, and mental health.

Daulerio had been a social drinker in high school and college. After school he joined the fast-paced New York media scene, eventually working at voice-y publications like Deadspin and Gawker. (Daulerio was the editor who published the infamous Hulk Hogan sex tape, which spurred a lawsuit resulting in Gawker’s shuttering.) In his 20s, Daulerio was drinking to dull social nerves. Then he got into cocaine. In his mid-30s, he repeatedly tried to get sober but it never stuck. By his early 40s he started taking LSD “way too frequently,” as he puts it, just to feel something, anything. Soon after, he checked into a rehab center in New Jersey for 9 days, then went to Florida. This July he’ll have been sober for 9 years.

The posts Daulerio and other contributors publish in The Small Bow often go far beyond addiction and recovery stories, exploring the stuff at the heart of substance use and abuse: a search for meaning, grappling with fear, a longing for joy and connection. As a result a dedicated community of readers has formed around The Small Bow. They connect in comment threads and in daily Zoom meetings. The Microdose talked with Daulerio about how he thinks about psychedelics and recovery.

What is recovery? And how is it different from sobriety?

Sobriety is supposed to be rigid. To me, sobriety is essentially abstinence. But you don’t have to be abstinent to be in some kind of recovery. And within recovery, there are different ways of doing it. There’s formal recovery, which I would define as being in an active recovery program, like the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But I would say about half of our readership is not in formal recovery. There are a lot of people who aren’t sober, either. Some might describe themselves as “sober-curious,” where they’re just trying to figure out where on the spectrum they are. I’ve gotten emails from people who were heroin addicts and now drink wine, or use mushrooms instead of whatever other substances they were using.

Ultimately I think my definition of recovery is whatever makes you feel less bad. Brazilian jiu jitsu and therapy, those are forms of recovery too.

You mentioned mushrooms — how are people thinking about psychedelics in relation to recovery?

There are a lot of people talking about ketamine in particular. For many people, getting sober reveals a deeper depression. I count myself in this camp as well, depression was probably a huge factor in why I drank and used drugs the way I did for so long. So people are trying to find solutions to the underlying problem, and I think they should go to whatever lengths possible to do that.

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What trends are you seeing in how people in your readership or social circles are using psychedelics?

I had never heard about microdosing until the last three or four years; it’s become really socially acceptable. Now instead of drinking cosmos, my wife’s friends will just take a little ground up mushroom before going out. And it seems like molly is still big. In general, a lot of folks are experimenting with this idea of “Cali sober,” where they’re drinking less and using psychedelics instead.

Scientists are exploring things like psilocybin to treat alcohol use disorder, or ibogaine for opioid addiction. Do folks in the recovery world have opinions on the use of one mind altering substance to treat addiction to a different substance?

I know some people who are in AA who use weed medicinally for anxiety or depression, but they don’t share about that at meetings, since in AA, you’re not considered sober if you’re using any drug. I get why those rules are in place and it’s a great program — it’s been around for 80 years because of those rules.

But I also think the world’s changed a lot, and that recovery should be focused on people’s mental health. My hope is that the program will evolve, too; I mean, you can abuse extra strength Tylenol. Anything that’s altering your state of mind could be considered addictive. My sugar intake is honestly pretty addict-y; I eat my feelings in ways that are pretty disgusting. There’s always a line; you can abuse anything.

It sounds like your own psychedelics use was generally recreational, and at times even abusive. What do you think of the prospect of these substances being used in mental health treatments? Is that ever something you’d consider doing?

Is it weird to say I miss psychedelics? And weirdly, I think my biggest fear about taking psychedelics again is that I’d start smoking again. As you said, I was doing these drugs more for fun, but had I not gotten sober and gone the AA 12-step route, I probably would have tried ketamine. In remembering my good trips, I can see why some people might feel healed — they can give you this sense of connecting with other people, and a sense of safety. When people break a bone, they go to physical therapy – I feel like recovery is like the same thing but for your spirit, your mental health.

Certain things can help but it’s never just one thing that leads to success — I have a psychiatrist, a therapist, I do 12-step, I do meditation every day. And I need all of them, and I only figured this out after a long period of trial and error. I want people to find the things that are going to help them.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.