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Some Things About Alcohol and Addiction

When thinking about addiction, many people envision two polar opposites: someone either is, or is not, an addict. Or, there may be a third possibility, namely, a recovering addict. This person is not in active addiction, but neither is he or she a non-addict. And it would be inaccurate to envision addict and non-addict as two dots with a line in between, and with recovering addict in the middle. The situation is better compared with a triangle, whose points are three distinct and equidistant entities.

Or is five the number of possible states that exist, other than non-addict? The celebrity Dr. Drew said,

Fundamentally you have to understand addiction as a spectrum disorder, from incipient to mild, to severe, to advanced, to fatal… You can be along that spectrum and be an addict. The DSM4 and DSM5 kind of takes issue with this, so I don’t use those criteria.

Is non-addict even a possibility? Does everyone start out already belonging to the category of incipient addict, a condition from which we can never graduate; the best state to which we can ever aspire?

Dr. Drew, who began his career as a biologist, spoke to podcast host Duncan Trussell about his belief that addiction is not a malfunction, but a state of being that serves a genetic, evolutionary function. (One might say, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.) He cites the daring, can-do spirit of the alcoholics who drive race cars (as an exemplary stand-in for many equally risky activities) and admires their resilience because they are “more likely to survive in their heedlessness.”

He speaks of “qualities that shine in times of war and chaos,” adding,

In peacetime, it comes out as alcoholism.

The source of this next anecdote is lost, but it was told by a female show-business figure who had been in rehab to kick a powerful illegal drug. Once she had checked in, a fellow patient offered her a cigarette. When she replied that she did not smoke, he offered some advice instead. The man warned her to take up cigarette smoking immediately, because the addiction she signed up to be treated for would “need somewhere to go.”

It is fairly common for people who quit drugs or alcohol to become overly attached to food, and to grow obese. So, to a media professional in that situation, smoking no doubt looks like the better choice. “Transfer addiction” is a real thing; only one of the life changes that an aspiring sober person needs to prepare for.

A professional hustler and ex-convict identified as “Jim” once revealed his history to the AARP The Magazine. After first trying heroin at age 22, he remained an addict for 15 years and supported his habit by perpetrating fraud as a member of a “boiler room” phone sales team. He said that being a drug addict had endowed him with two qualities that every scam artist needs: selfishness and greed. He said:

If you are strung out and in need of a fix, you will do anything to feed your habit…. [M]any of these scam operations in South Florida recruited their boiler room staff at local Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Who’s a better talker than an addict? Nobody. Who is more manipulative than an addict? Nobody. Who is more desperate for money than an addict? Nobody. Addicts hustle; that’s what we do.

Some might argue that working for mobsters at a sordid job may have been what turned “Jim” into a junkie in the first place. Since we will probably never know for sure, the best course would no doubt be to avoid both crooked rackets and addictive substances.

Standup comedian Jayson Thibault has spoken often about alcohol abuse. On one occasion, he told podcast host Ari Shaffir,

If I’m drinking, at least for four hours a day I don’t hear the war in between my ears… This is peaceful. I finally feel good. I finally don’t hate myself.

Poet Lynne Bronstein wrote “Ten Steps,” built on the premise that if only she would get drunk, she would be able to swim, write, sing, and accept mortality. The last line reads,

maybe if I had one more drink
I could give it up forever.

Written by Pat Hartman. First published October 18, 2024.

Sources:

“Duncan Trussell Family Hour, Episode 133: DR. DREW!,” undated.

“Confessions of a Con Artist,” AARP.org, September 27, 2012.

“Substance Love at First Sight,” Childhood Obesity News, October 27, 2015.

“#189: Catastrophic Alcoholic (@TheTeeb),” libsyn.com, October 20, 2014.

“10 Steps by Lynne Bronstein,” Muse-apprentice-guild.com, 2003.

Image Copyright: Torkild Retvedt/Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.

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