Isn’t addiction awesome? The way it destroys your life and the lives of those around you? The way that once it has a toehold in your consciousness, it’s exceptionally hard to not have it define you forever? Ask anyone who’s ever been touched by the ravenous scourge of addiction, and I’m sure they’ll tell you it’s kinda like snack food. Really! Or at least the makers of snack food will.
So I’m having lunch with the lady yesterday and we discovered that both of our snack foods were emblazoned with proud claims about their addictive properties. Hers was an addictive assortment of savory and salty peanut snacks! Mine — a vegan cookie, of all things — was purportedly wonderfully addictive! What’s so blazingly fantastic about something being addictive?
Seems like everyone these days is trumpeting how addictive their product or service is, like it’s the new fried chicken. Sorry, I just had to stop typing there for a sec and run next door to the bodega, shoot the owner in the face and clean out his cash drawer so I could go score the new KFC shamewich. Shit, I said it again. BRB! OK. Back now, bloated, self-loathing and a wanted felon. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Boy, you know what would go great with this inky blackness of grinding torment? A bag of “totally life-destroying” corn chips!! When you’re addicted to addiction, you just can’t get enough addiction! And oddly enough, the products that could actually back up their claims somehow choose to demur: Marlboro Wonderfully Addictive! Grey Goose Come For The Intoxication, Stay For The Crippling Habit! (Then switch to Ruble Vokda)
It’s so fantastically fashionable to be six kindsa wrong these days. Hotmail‘s latest grasp at relevance is that it’s made for The New Busy. Ads on buses inform me that for a member of The New Busy, this isn’t just a boring old bus, nooo. For The New Busy, it’s an office! Library! Nap room! Getaway car! Waterloo! Orphanage!
What’s so “new” about The New Busy, you might ask? Well, now that they’re through privately destroying their own lives, and they’re totally into destroying your life! Because for The New Busy, their car is their new phone booth! Chatroom! Text hut! Sauna! Chill pad! Gas chamber! The Starbucks is their new message center! Networking hub! Conference room! Sweat lodge! Speed date! Room 101!
You know The New Busy. They’re the ones whose response to any innocent salutation is to grow suddenly wide-eyed and heave a theatrically exaggerated sigh: “busy.” Or perhaps their style is the quizzical, surprised look “whew! busy.” Like it just unexpectedly hit them on the head. Wow man, I’m sorry. Is that the right response? How are you? Oh, you know… hardworking, but generally well-rested and satisfied. Really, dude? Maybe readjust your priorities and jam some miserable in there. After all, as they say: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!! (ie. Happy? Shame on you, you ignorant shit.)
What’s happened to the Old Busy? You know, Ol’ Gil from “The Simpsons.” He’s out of fashion, love. Apparently, he hasn’t gotten a hold of the new snortable sleep replacement they’re developing at UCLA. I hate to break it to you geniuses, but some colleagues and I already did some deep research into snortable sleep substitutes back in ’98 at a little Puerto Rican bar in Brooklyn. I would direct you there, but I hear it’s been shut down. Anyway, results were awesome brain lightning, followed by the worst 12 hours you can possibly imagine.
I guess the good news about addiction is. . . aw, fuck it, there’s no way to get out of that sentence reasonably. You either die, quit, or live out your days as a pitiful wraith. So will our society ever kick its addiction addiction? You’d certainly need more space on soda cans:
Delicious! Have one, and you won’t want any more for a reasonable length of time until you decide it’s prudent to have another! At which point we fully encourage you to make your choice free of duress!
Sounds awesome. I can’t wait to get hooked on patience and contentment!!
Dude, crack is like fucking crack, man.
Same thing goes for OCD. (Same thing goes for OCD. Same thing goes for OCD.)
I don’t think I quite nailed it here, but I wonder since when everyone’s guilty pleasure is dysfunction (I even hate the word ‘dysfunction’ and the way about 10 years ago it became everyone’s favorite apply-liberally-misunderstand-completely term, like ‘postmodern’ or ‘paradigm’).
Was it 90s heroin chic that made everyone want to be fashionably sick in some way? God knows with all the love that celebrity ex-addicts get, I could understand. Ricky Gervais has a field day with this, basically saying no one ever gets a standing ovation for never having done drugs at all, but get over a habit you got yourself into in the first place and watch the congratulations come rolling in.
I think maybe people pathologize their behaviors for two reasons:
a. it diminishes personal responsibility when one can shift the blame externally to “the disorder” or “the addiction”,
b. when people are pissed because of something you’ve done, throw all your energy into portraying yourself as a victim in need of sympathy and support. This is just a new spin on a very old trick of passive-aggressives all over the world.
If you’re socially awkward and have one or two passionate interests, you have Asperger’s. If you’re an uptight control freak, say you have OCD. If you can’t keep it in your pants, you’re a sex addict. If you’re tired all the time, it’s probably chronic fatigue syndrome or Lyme disease, not your sedentary lifestyle and crap diet. ADHD, Celiac’s disease, depression, phobias, PMDD, social anxiety disorder….
These people never have professional diagnoses, of course. They’ve figured it out themselves with Dr. Phil and the internet. Nor do they ever seek treatment. Meanwhile all this crap just diminishes the experience of the people who really have these problems.
All too true. And unfortunately these habitual behavioral afflictions and self-delusions often prevent those who could most benefit from coping strategies from seeking out assistance, because they don’t want to identify with the perpetrators of indulgent fantasy.
I’ve heard from drug addicts and recovered addicts how ridiculous and irritating it is to hear random people describe themselves as junkies (e.g. “Like, OMG, I am a total organic raw kombucha junkie!”) or co-opt other phrases like jonseing and saying every other goddamned thing is “like crack”.