Replacing My Addiction

I’m grateful it’s Friday. I’m grateful for another peaceful, quiet morning on the pirate balcony. I’m grateful for living in the food delivery capital of the world. I’m grateful for the way things seem to work out. I’m grateful to be sober today.

song of the week:

The weird backstory? I know exactly where I was when I heard my first Jamiroquai song. It was the fall of 2001 and I was in London. I was a pretty heavy, yet largely undiscovered, drinker in those days. I traveled a lot for work and days, almost whole weeks, just disappeared, under the burden of my “travel routines.” I was pretty angry and resentful in those days and on this particular trip, and this particular day, I was quite resentful at the amount of time I was spending watching someone else shop. Very resentful. It wasn’t this song that came on the store stereo, it was “Little L,” and I instantly fell in love with that song.

Fast forward a decade. I’m divorced and trying to get sober in our Nation’s Capital. I’d walk home a lot of nights from the IOP on K Street, ordering carry-out chinese food and listening to “Little L”—I think it added a defiant, f*** all of you, element to this effort at sobriety.¹ “Little L” was featured in one of my favorite playlists of that era: It was named,

“No, I’m not bitter.”

hahaha. I was very bitter. It was a ridiculous, cartoon-ish assemblage of self-pitying relationship songs, maybe there’s a niche for that. I’m not going to tell you all of the songs, but the playlist did include “Everything She Wants,” by Wham. I’m going to pre-empt your question. Why is “Little L,” not the song of the week then?²

Too bitter. Don’t get me wrong, I very much dig this song, but I find “Virtual Insanity,” more often matches my mood these days. Also, I very much admire the hat and the dancing in “Virtual Insanity.” One thing I really like is the very beginning of the video, where he holds that first step pose while being transported across the floor. I have and frequently wear those same, exact sneakers.³ Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I often do a version of that exaggerated first step when I exit the secret coffee place on 84th St., skim cortado in hand and adventure in my heart. Actual conversation there earlier this week:

Coffee Shop Proprietress: Another skim cortado? This is your third today? (leans in conspiratorially), maybe you have a problem?

Recovering Alcoholic: hahaha yes, you actually have no idea.

Coffee Shop Proprietress: Does this not affect your sleep?

Recovering Alcoholic: Yes, quite a bit, I think.

The thing that’s funny about that exchange, to me, is my continuing capacity for self-delusion. I don’t sleep much or very well when I do. Could my prolific coffee consumption be part of that issue. Ummmmm, yes. I tell myself lies like, “you had a coffee after dinner three nights ago and you slept,” or “you never really slept that much anyway,” or “you actually don’t need much sleep.” My brain is just wired to throw nonsense like that out there. Over and over again, without any real regard for the subject matter.

Yes, I see the patterns, how these are the same types of self-lies that helped conceal the true nature and extent of my alcoholism from myself. “Myself” was the person I was trying the hardest to fool, and fortunately, he was willing to play along.

One day, research money in addiction and recovery will actually go towards figuring out why and how people get addicted and how they can recover, instead of trying to determine whether people calling themselves “alcoholics” somehow stymies their own recovery and stigmatizes themselves.⁴ When that day comes, I think they will find that alcoholics and addicts have f***ed up dopamine processes and structures in the brain, among other things. Which leads me to my one of my favorite pet peeves, when an alcoholic turns to a newcomer, who is furiously running or exercising or journaling or eating Reese’s Miniature Peanut Butter Cups by the dozens, and says,

Aren’t you just replacing one addiction with another?

Maybe the person in early sobriety who runs a lot, every day, is trying hard to replace the drinking/using with running—good. I think the parameters of AA are pretty well established, there is only one qualification for membership: A desire to stop drinking. How people choose to pursue that is up to them. If you think that is AA- heresy than I think you should probably crack open the Big Book to the chapter descriptively titled, “Working with Others.” You’ll note that chiding people for their approaches to recovery is not really the recommended course of action.⁵ I think people too often lose sight of the real goal of recovery:

Living a life filled with meaning and purpose.

Notice I didn’t say anything about drinking or not drinking there? I don’t think the real point is to just stop drinking, it’s to build a life that provokes wonder and excitement and is full of new challenges. Yes, that was never going to happen as long as I was drinking. But just stopping drinking wasn’t enough to produce the real goal of recovery:

Living a life filled with meaning and purpose.

At a tactical level, one of the things that worked for me was explicitly approaching my alcoholism as an exercise in replacing bad sources of dopamine, and all of the other brain goodies, with more virtuous, sustainable sources. So, yes, at some level I am actively trying to replace the addiction to alcohol with something else. We all know that “something else,” isn’t enough either. The thing that works to accomplish actual change is structured self-examination, like one can get from studying the Big Book and working the Steps. My alcoholism wasn’t an accessory I acquired as a teenager because I thought it suited my life and my budding brand. It was an essential tool, maybe even a cornerstone, of my very flawed life.

Other than coffee, I’m not really into bitter flavors anymore. That’s why “Virtual Insanity,” is the sotw instead of “Little L.” My life is about possibility and potential and humility and acceptance, that’s ultimately what I’ve been replacing my addiction with.

Yes, I drink too much coffee and maybe even a little compulsively. In the olden days, I drank too much wine, very compulsively, and at the end of the evening, I’d slink home, defeated, angry at myself for throwing away another day, despondent at the prospect of having to endure another sunrise in just a few hours. Things have changed a bit.

Sunrise on the Pirate Balcony.

You know what happens when I drink too much coffee, even compulsively? I connect with people around me, I leave the cozy confines of my apartment and the walk up to 84th St. fills me with a little bit of anticipation and excitement (it’s still that same alcoholic brain after all). Of course, there are similarities to the thinking patterns that drove my alcoholism. The difference? I walk out of that coffee shop, nearly-perfect skim Cortado in hand, a song like “Virtual Insanity,” playing as I do that dumb, ridiculous, exaggerated first step towards the doggie day care and Central Park. I’m excited, happy, at peace with myself… ready to get after it.

That’s what I actually “replaced” my addiction with, a life filled with meaning and purpose, actual happiness and joy. And a shit-ton of coffee.

1. I think the backstory of the song might involve addiction.

2. I get that you might not have this level of interest in the sotw selection process.

3. I know I could never pull off the hat.

4. This is an actual study conducted by a real professor at a real university and funded by NIH.

5. I once had someone at a meeting in DC, a lawyer with about ten years of sobriety, chide me for taking anti-depressants, “aren’t you just replacing one drug with another?” Remind me about all of my Lexapro-related antics again?