Towards A Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle


This edition of “Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle” by Nick Riotfag was reprinted in 2014 by Sprout Distro. This edition features the revised
text along with an afterward that appeared in the book, Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics .

Text from the zine:

“This zine is an ongoing project I’ve been writing in my head and on paper for several years now. Since I decided to become permanently sober several years ago, I’ve constantly struggled to find safe spaces; I hoped that when I started to become a part of radical, activist, and anarchist communities, that I would find folks who shared or at least respected my convictions. Instead, I found a painful paradox: radical scenes that were so welcoming and affirming in many ways, yet incredibly inflexible and unsupportive around my desire to be in sober spaces.”

towards_a_less_fucked_up_world pdf

My Edge is Anything but Straight: Towards A Radical Queer Critique of Intoxication Culture

Text from the zine:

“I’ve been intentionally sober ever since I first started going to punk shows when I was 14 or 15, and have always thought about my sobriety not just as a personal preference but as a social and political statement. I’ve always felt ambivalent towards sXe identity, though, a major reason being that I also identify strongly as queer. It’s not that I think the two identities are necessarily incompatible, but they seem to have an uncomfortable relationship. On the one hand, I haven’t felt much space to be my queer self in most punk/hardcore scenes, and the hyper-masculine reputation of sXe definitely turns me off. On the other hand, I’ve faced a lot of exclusion within queer scenes for my sobriety. With this article I’m attempting to reconcile these parts of myself, wondering how I might hold on to the edge while leaving behind the straight. I hope that it will provoke conversation and debate about drugs, alcohol, queer communities, sXe, radical politics, and about how we can transform our society.”

Towards A Radical Queer Critique Of Intoxication Culture pdf