The Shining (novel), The Shining (mini series), and Doctor Sleep (novel) and AA

[Witchcult Today]

** ***SPOILERS***
I'm going to tackle Doctor Sleep for the second time later today. I have read The Shining probably 10-15 times so i figured i would watch the miniseries to refresh myself instead of reading The Shining AGAIN before reading Doctor Sleep. I had some ideas, questions, and a topic of discussion about King's process in the writing of these two stories.
First of all, i am a member of AA, too. I used to have a major alcohol and heroin problem. My alcohol problem has gotten a lot better in the past year but i still do not go a day without at least two or three beers. I started AA just several weeks back, as i had just gotten off my medication for opiate addiction and figured it was probably a good idea to go to AA not just to keep my drinking in check and hopefully quit all together, but to also have people to talk to about my heroin problem since i am no longer on the drug that inhibited opiate action in my body. Just to keep me on the straight and narrow, so to speak. King used a lot of AA quotes in Doctor Sleep and i enjoyed that a lot!
Doctor Sleep came out at the most perfect time in my life. it was just a few months after i had stopped using and it really hit close to home. Doctor Sleep was the most intense novel i have ever read in my life. Me and Danny had ended up having quite a bit in common.

Spoiler: spoiler

On to the discussion! In the Author's Note at the end of Doctor Sleep, King said, "What would have happened to Danny's troubled father if he had found Alcoholics Anonymous instead of trying to get by with what people in AA call 'white-knuckle sobriety'?"
In "Stephen King's The Shining" miniseries (which King penned the Teleplay for), Jack DOES attend AA meetings until the snow has them trapped in the hotel, do you think that the reason Jack ended up the way he did was because he was unable to attend meetings anymore or was it inevitable?
In the novel, Jack never has attended an AA meeting but pretty much the same outcome occurs. what do you all think? how would Jack have handled his situation in the miniseries had he been able to continue going to AA? food for thought! let's hear some responses!

 

[GNTLGNT]

...inevitable...the power that possessed that structure made preying on Jack's foibles, child's play...

 

[Mr Nobody]

I say it was inevitable.

Spoiler

The meetings may have given him enough of a temporary boost to cause a delay, but...Jack was doomed from the minute he took the job, IMO.

 

[RichardX]

The Shining is one of my favorites because it works on a lot of different levels. I always felt that it was most effective when dealing with people who are haunted rather than places. It's really the characters who suffer from addiction, depression, suicide and various perversions who are haunted and the Overlook is simply the place that they had in common. Jack was somewhat fated to self-destruction in that respect. His temper, addiction, and stress were things he couldn't ultimately cope with. Dr. Sleep continues on that path noting how such traits can be passed on either through genetics or by imitation. In that respect it is a much more optimistic story since it demonstrates how those demons can be faced and managed with help (although they never entirely go away). That kind of struggle can sometimes result in a stronger, better person emerging rather than destroying them.

 

[VultureLvr45]

Witchcult Today, Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Dr. Sleep and The Shining; also for your background history. My response is in no specific order, only as my brain compares and contrasts the two stories.

It has been a while since I have read The Shining. I recall Jack Torrence trying to leave the booze alone (white knuckling), making promises life would get better and then interviewing and taking the job at the Overlook despite his nagging feeling something wasn't right with the place. Jack tried to do the right thing, to provide for his family the best he knew how, and he believed he 'could handle' being alone for a couple months to work on his book. What he didn't count on was the inherent evil lurking within the Overlook's grounds.

What a difference indeed, if he had the support of good AA group, a routine meeting, and had learned to work on his steps. All of their lives would have turned out very differently. I don't think he would have taken the job, but would have continued to search for one more connected to help in his recovery. Please forgive me if I am not remembering correctly, but at the end of The Shining (book, not movie) Jack succumbed to his addiction, though still alive, was divorced from Wendy and Danny. Danny was scarred due to his fathers demons.

Dr. Sleep is an amazing story. Stephen King wrote it with his readers in mind. When I read it, I felt like he had written it for me (how crazy is that?) the same as you are feeling. He is an incredibly talented author, able to step into another persons shoes without missing a beat. He humanized the 'true knot' and made us feel sorry as well as hate them.

Danny is such a complex character. He sees himself a bit like his father, not as mean or angry. Horrified at himself ('candy') but also hopeful, caring, and able to work are a few of his strengths. I also think he feels compelled to nurture Abra because he didn't really have the nurturing of his special gift. Abra doesn't understand her gifts, but is thankful to her Uncle Dan for teaching her coping mechanisms, gifting his advice (ie; doormat, made me tear up), and reassurance that she is normal. When Abra grows up, I wonder if she will mentor someone special.

In regards to your struggles with addiction, I am surprised that you have chosen AA rather than NA. Yes, you no longer use, but the reasons you began are still some where in there. Blurring them with 2-3 beers a day doesn't really resolve them, only masks them and makes the ups and downs a bit smoother.

Have you seen a shrink? The reason I am asking is not because I think you are nuts, but because research has shown those with addictions often have second diagnosis of mental illness (depression, bipolar, personality disorders etc.). People 'self medicate' to make themselves feel better or normal or at least level without a ton of ups and downs. In actuality, it could be a missing neurotransmitter or brain chemical playing havoc with your system.

My family has a significant history of mental illness and addiction. It really does make a difference getting clean, sober and staying on an appropriate mood stabilizing medication. There is always hope and you don't have to do it alone.

 

[Witchcult Today]

The Shining is one of my favorites because it works on a lot of different levels. I always felt that it was most effective when dealing with people who are haunted rather than places. It's really the characters who suffer from addiction, depression, suicide and various perversions who are haunted and the Overlook is simply the place that they had in common. Jack was somewhat fated to self-destruction in that respect. His temper, addiction, and stress were things he couldn't ultimately cope with. Dr. Sleep continues on that path noting how such traits can be passed on either through genetics or by imitation. In that respect it is a much more optimistic story since it demonstrates how those demons can be faced and managed with help (although they never entirely go away). That kind of struggle can sometimes result in a stronger, better person emerging rather than destroying them.

EXCELLENT! i agree with all of this 100%!

Witchcult Today, Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Dr. Sleep and The Shining; also for your background history. My response is in no specific order, only as my brain compares and contrasts the two stories.

It has been a while since I have read The Shining. I recall Jack Torrence trying to leave the booze alone (white knuckling), making promises life would get better and then interviewing and taking the job at the Overlook despite his nagging feeling something wasn't right with the place. Jack tried to do the right thing, to provide for his family the best he knew how, and he believed he 'could handle' being alone for a couple months to work on his book. What he didn't count on was the inherent evil lurking within the Overlook's grounds.

What a difference indeed, if he had the support of good AA group, a routine meeting, and had learned to work on his steps. All of their lives would have turned out very differently. I don't think he would have taken the job, but would have continued to search for one more connected to help in his recovery. Please forgive me if I am not remembering correctly, but at the end of The Shining (book, not movie) Jack succumbed to his addiction, though still alive, was divorced from Wendy and Danny. Danny was scarred due to his fathers demons.

Dr. Sleep is an amazing story. Stephen King wrote it with his readers in mind. When I read it, I felt like he had written it for me (how crazy is that?) the same as you are feeling. He is an incredibly talented author, able to step into another persons shoes without missing a beat. He humanized the 'true knot' and made us feel sorry as well as hate them.

Danny is such a complex character. He sees himself a bit like his father, not as mean or angry. Horrified at himself ('candy') but also hopeful, caring, and able to work are a few of his strengths. I also think he feels compelled to nurture Abra because he didn't really have the nurturing of his special gift. Abra doesn't understand her gifts, but is thankful to her Uncle Dan for teaching her coping mechanisms, gifting his advice (ie; doormat, made me tear up), and reassurance that she is normal. When Abra grows up, I wonder if she will mentor someone special.

In regards to your struggles with addiction, I am surprised that you have chosen AA rather than NA. Yes, you no longer use, but the reasons you began are still some where in there. Blurring them with 2-3 beers a day doesn't really resolve them, only masks them and makes the ups and downs a bit smoother.

Have you seen a shrink? The reason I am asking is not because I think you are nuts, but because research has shown those with addictions often have second diagnosis of mental illness (depression, bipolar, personality disorders etc.). People 'self medicate' to make themselves feel better or normal or at least level without a ton of ups and downs. In actuality, it could be a missing neurotransmitter or brain chemical playing havoc with your system.

My family has a significant history of mental illness and addiction. It really does make a difference getting clean, sober and staying on an appropriate mood stabilizing medication. There is always hope and you don't have to do it alone.

You hit the nail on the head! Doctor Sleep absolutely blew me away and became my favorite novel by King. I felt like i could relate to Danny on a many number of levels. Addiction, had trouble keeping a job, would wake up with women similar to Deanie and in similar situations.
I cried while reading Doctor Sleep numerous times. not BAWLING but i had tears running down my face. ("Dream up a dragon and tell me about it in the morning.")
<3

I have been to a shrink. Regularly, in fact. I am diagnosed with clinical depression and both generalized anxiety AND panic disorders, which i take treatment for. These disorders were so severe that the medication did not seem to work much at all, so yes, i was self-medicating. In my darkest times, after i had pawned almost everything i owned (pretty much everything besides my home audio system - i'm a music junkie. i also kept my fender rhodes piano because if i didn't have that, i would have really lost my mind. ...and i kept my gun. i was honestly keeping my gun in case i ever wanted a way out, so to speak. i was extremely screwed up in the head. Once i stopped using, my medication (Klonopin) started to work a lot better. very strange, indeed. my depression is all but gone, now, and panic attacks are rare for me these days.
The reason i attend AA instead of NA is mainly because my doctor suggested it to me, considering i have an alcohol problem still to this day. my goal is to completely quit drinking and stick with the few harmless things that have never affected my life in a band way (and have improved it in many more)...cannabis (couple of times a week) and the occasional mushrooms. i was actually on a mushroom trip when i decided to make a call to the clinic to get off of heroin. something happened to me in that trip...that was a long time ago and i have been better ever since. i know a lot of people who can not even take a hit off of a joint without immediately wanting to go back to doing heroin but i am thankfully not one of those people.

 

[VultureLvr45]

 

[Witchcult Today]

Here is a question about "The Shining" (the book in particular, though it is in the TV miniseries in a less dramatic way, too. What is with Danny's fear of the fire-hose on the wall? What is the significance of that one single item, which never causes any problems for any of the family members throughout the story? There are several pages about Danny's fear of the fire-hose but nothing ever comes of it...just King building up fear in the reader as a tease, almost?

 

[blunthead]

** ***SPOILERS***
...I have read The Shining probably 10-15 times...[/SPOILER]

No way!

 

[Witchcult Today]

lolol! WAY! i love that book. it has been a while since i have read it, though...i think 15 is probably enough for now. all i can figure is the hose gave him some kind of dread because he may have subconsciously known the hotel was eventually going to burn down?