Jamie's TEDx Talk, Alcohol & Drugs: The Missing Links in Suicidal Depression
What is the missing link in suicidal depression? When people take their lives, the question is often, "Why did they do it?" when it really should be, "How did they get there?" In this eye-opening talk, author, storyteller and suicide attempt survivor Jamie Brickhouse shares his journey of battling addiction and suicidal depression, and how little is still understood and researched between the connection. His message will change the way you think about suicide, addiction and those who have lost their lives to both.
Called a natural raconteur by the Washington Post, Jamie Brickhouse is a writer, comedic storyteller, TikTok sensation, and public speaker. He's the author of the critically acclaimed Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze Sex and My Mother (St. Martin's Press). It's "Required Reading" in Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir; an Amazon Editors' Pick (Biographies & Memoirs), an Amazon "Best Book of May 2015," and a Book Chase "2015 Nonfiction Top 10."
Brickhouse's daily TikTok #storiesinheels videos in which he tells a true story have over 5 million views, nearly a million likes, and 75,000 followers. His essays and articles have been published in the New York Times (multiple times), International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Salon, Interview, Out, Huffington Post, POZ, Amtrak's Arrive, Lambda Literary Review, Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness, Australia's The Daily Life, The Fix.com, the Latin American travel magazine Travesía, and Addiction/ Recovery eBulletin. Merriam-Webster featured a sentence from Brickhouse's Huffington Post "HuffPost Personal" essay in its "Word of the Day" as a perfect usage example of the word effulgence.
An internationally recognized storyteller, Brickhouse tours two award-winning, critically acclaimed solo shows based on Dangerous When Wet and I Favor My Daddy: A Tale of Two Sissies, his forthcoming memoir. He has recorded voices on Beavis Butthead, interviewed Matthew McConaughey for the worldwide San Miguel Literary Sala, has appeared on PBS-TV's Stories from the Stage, and The Moth Podcast. He is a 5-time Moth Storytelling champion, National Storytelling Network Grand Slam champ, a Literary Death Match champion, and 99-Second Story GrandSLAM winner.
Brickhouse spent over two decades in the publishing industry, most recently at two major houses as head of their publicity and lecture divisions. He is founder and CEO of redBrick Agency, a lecture bureau for authors. A native of Beaumont, Texas, he is a graduate of Trinity University (San Antonio) and the Radcliffe Publishing Course (now the Columbia Publishing Course). Brickhouse lives in New York City with his husband Michael.