It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an I

Sometimes I miss the drama. Not often enough.

It’s hard to write about addiction when you’re doing fine. Hard for me, at least. I have always confused excitement with happiness, so when things are fine, it can seem… boring. Serenity is an unaccustomed state of being for me, and I don’t feel like it’s my place to fire up the laptop and share how I learned to be bored.

But then I spoke at a large, lively 12-step meeting in Silverlake, and I was reminded how not fun active addiction really is. This was not so much because of the drama the newcomers were sharing (and trust me, a roomful of pierced and tattooed gender-fluid Gen Z sex and love addicts has drama to spare!), but because of what I reminded myself as I was telling my own story.

I had forgotten what it feels like to curl up in fetal position on the floor because I got stood up for a date, the Boomer equivalent of being ghosted. Or because the phone rang and rang and rang unanswered, the Boomer equivalent of being “left on read.” I forgot what it feels like to swear to yourself you’re not going to drive past A Certain Someone’s house, because surely they must be out of town or they would have called (but in the back of your mind you’re convinced there’s someone else and you don’t want to know but also you have to find out…) and then you drive by anyway because you can’t not drive by… what’s the Gen Z equivalent of that one? Lyft? E-bike? Drone?

I once blew an important pitch meeting because a handsome man in the reception area winked at me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So much for that pithy plot synopsis. I once postponed a surgical procedure because a guy I was interested in was maybe going to be on the West Coast that week, and I couldn’t risk being unavailable. I once sat in a hotel lobby in Manhattan for an entire evening waiting to meet up with a crush who was actually in Boston at the time, but never thought to tell me. It’s not so much that he was a bad person. It’s just that our timeless romance was mostly in my head.

Now to be clear, he was a bad person. I frequently crushed on bad people. It was part of their charm. Love addict women are drawn to bad men the same way sex addict men are drawn to crazy women. Damage is sexy. You could do an advanced degree in French literature on the subject. Closer to home, take this perfect exchange from a Y2K-era sitcom — and forgive me, screenwriter, for not remembering the show’s title to give you credit — where the hot guy and the hot girl take a break from tongue-wrestling to confess: (Him) “If we sleep together, I’ll probably never call you.” (Her) “If you never call me, I’ll probably key your car.” Beat. Then, locking tongues once more, they rush off to the nearest bed.

I relate. Insane never stopped me; if anything, it motivated me. And while I’m grateful to not live in the insanity today, that insanity does make for some wildly entertaining anecdotes. This is why 12-step meetings are so often full of laughter. (Okay, maybe not Alanon. Or ACA…) Fun is tempting. Do my ears occasionally perk up when a tall drink of water with just the right amount of beard stubble shows up at a 12-step room, still wearing a hospital bracelet? Of course they do. What I do with that is applaud when he takes a newcomer chip… and not offer him my phone number. Because as an old-timer said to me years ago, they can’t arrest you for thinking crazy shit. Just don’t act on it.

I am well aware that moving Beard Stubble into the spare bedroom would have made for better dinner table conversation, because I am also well aware of which bedroom he would have ended up in… and where that would eventually have led. Been there, done that, got the crumpled hospital bracelet. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an I — as in, their integrity, their identity, their very sense of self.

I picked an image from Leaving Las Vegas to illustrate this post, because I was sober when I saw that movie and while I was well aware that my sympathies were supposed to lie with the tragic couple, especially with doomed alcoholic Nick Cage, they did not. You know where my sympathies lay? With that poor motel owner who had to clean up the broken glass around her pool. I am also well aware that the movie about a put-upon landlady would not have sold many tickets.

My invitation to you is to share some of your insanity with the rest of the gang here. I bet you won’t be the only one to have been there and done that. Whatever crazy shit That is.