"This author," I informed my husband in my most decisive of tones, "does not actually know what it is to be an alcoholic."
"Oh?" he inquired. "What makes you say that?"
"Mmh." I considered the passage that brought about my statement. "She doesn't describe drunkenness well, and she doesn't quite get...the need of it. This character isn't an alcoholic. She just gets drunk a lot."
This may seem a ridiculously nuanced distinction to some. Others will understand precisely what I'm talking about.
As I sit here, the rain outside is playing a lovely percussion against the rooftops, accompanying itself with tinny droplet-clanks upon the gutters. There aren't may passing cars at a quarter to three in the morning, but whenever one goes past it gives the temporary illusion of waves hitting the shore of an ocean somewhere in the distance. Pure heaven is the smell of rain against sidewalk; it drifts in through the open window on a damp breeze that is cool and fresh against my legs. The thunderstorm has already passed, and in its wake the rain has settled into a soft, steady, drenching downfall. All is peace after the rumbling violence of a storm.
I would kill for a drink. What a strange saying, that. "I would kill for thisandsuchathing." It's clearly meant to convey a certain level of desperation, a willingness to temporarily discard one's deepest moral structures in order to fulfill a momentary whim. It is a measure of extremity, one that we don't pause to analyze too heavily since the phrase has entered our casual, day-to-day vernacular. And yet, what an eerie thing to claim, that one would kill for any reason at all. The potential is always there, and yet we say it so easily, so thoughtlessly.
Which is kind of beautiful, if you want to perceive it that way. Death is ever-present, violence is constantly in-potentia, and so we take the concept and make it safe, take its teeth out and declaw it and make it casual, commonplace, even funny. I would kill for a drink.
Of course, it becomes much less funny if it turns out to be true, if the person saying it really would kill for a sandwich or a cigarette or a bathroom break or a cup of coffee. In this particular case, I don't think the sudden solidifying of a hypothetical situation in which I am called upon to end the life of a given individual in order to earn myself a glass of reasonably good wine would end in my bringing about the actual death of said individual. It's far more likely that I will be calling the police to be letting them know that some madman has broken into my apartment and is offering me drinks in exchange for the assassination of my husband.
The police tend to frown on those sorts of shenanigans.
But I will be the first to admit that I would be eyeballing that glass like it was rainfall in the desert. The very moment said madman is carted away, before the paperwork that inevitably follows a random incursion of this nature is brought back by the kind Officer Biggensworth (who is very confused by the whole situation, and suspects there to be some kind of sick sex thing going on), that glass of wine will be gone. It will likely be gone the very instant it is set down. Because even while having my husband's life threatened, even while having MY life threatened, at least a portion of my attention will always be centered upon the location of the glass and its contents. Somewhere underneath the terror and the fury and the helplessness, there will be a part of me that is annoyed not because of the insanity of the situation, but because in the confusion someone spilled a few drops. A small part, yes, but a part nonetheless, will mourn the waste.
Unlike Elin Hilderbrand, you see, I can tell you a thing or two about the nature of the addict.
An addictive personality is defined by Wikipedia as,
"a particular set of personality traits that make an individual predisposed to addictions. People who are substance dependent are characterized by a physical or psychological dependency that negatively impacts the quality of life of the person. They are frequently connected with substance abuse, but people with addictive personalities are also highly at risk of becoming addicted to gambling, food, pornography, exercise, work, and even relationships (codependency). People engaged in addictive behavior tend to plan their lives around it."
Addictive personality disorder is not listed in the DSM-IV, a surprising thing in this day and age of clinical diagnoses and subsequent druggings-unto-death of anything from an inability to pay attention to an unwillingness to follow directions to the tendency to feel sad every once in awhile for no particularly good reason. If you want my admittedly cynical opinion on the matter, this is likely because you can't give an addict expensive drugs to take away his or her tendency to get addicted to things. Because they'll get addicted to them. There is no way for pharmaceutical companies to make money off of them; they are, therefore, disregarded by the part of the psychological community in charge of what does and what does not go into the DSM-IV.
(Disclaimer for those with a tendency to write nasty emails if I do not back up with fact every single point I make that might be insulting to anyone, anywhere: I may be incorrect in this assessment. My apologies to the psychological community in general if this turns out to be the case. There's an off chance I will be researching this further; I promise if I turn out to be horribly off-base about this, I will come back and admit it.)
(Counter-disclaimer: fuck you, for making me feel the need to have to disclaimer something that might insult the psychological community. In fact, fuck the psychological community. For every psychiatrist that does good in the world, there's twenty assholes who are in it for the money and couldn't care less about this overly-medicated society in which three-year-olds are given drugs that turn them into fucking ZOMBIES because their parents can't handle actually having to parent a fucking toddler.)
(Counter-counter-disclaimer: this is not to say that all drugs are bad and the entire psychological community sucks. I understand that there is a genuine need to medicate disorders that genuinely exist.)
(Counter-counter-counter-disclaimer: No, seriously, FUCK YOU for making me have to defend myself in this manner. I'm done disclaimering.)
<cough>
What the DSM-IV does do is set up the criteria by which dependence and abuse can be defined. And that is the limit on the amount of research I'm willing to do at this point in time, since it appears to be having an odd effect on my disclaimer policy.
What is addiction? It is a grasping, sucking, black hole in the precise center of your chest. It howls when you're bored, screeches when you're lonely, and keeps up a chattering thrum all the rest of the livelong day. It pulsates. It clutches and gibbers at your heart, circles and wheels and mutters justifications in your head, and condenses the world down to two things and two things only:
what it is you want, outlined in a clear shining white,
and everything else, dim and grey and unimportant.
I have, in the course of my life, been addicted to three things: smoking, drinking and a variety of social relationships. Smoking, I appear to have given up entirely one day when I suddenly realized I hated the taste. This is significant because I had tried to give it up when my husband found out about it, and didn't. I had tried to give it up when I promised various friends I would, and didn't. Why I finally did give it up is actually something of a mystery; one day I loved it, loved the smell, loved the taste, and the next I didn't.
Drinking is not the problem it used to be, but then, I'm happier than I used to be. I haven't been actively drunk since the episode that forced into the light the absolute depth of the problem. I do still have a drink from time to time, more than one drink from time to time. That's not the problem, I feel. The problem is that I always want a drink, and upon having one, I always want another, then another and another and another. The nature of addiction, the vacuum of the soul.
Social dependency isn't a problem anymore. It went the way of smoking; I woke up one day and had lost my taste for people. Well. That's not strictly accurate. I still like them. I just don't need them to provide what they can't provide me with anyway, and thus no longer seem to expect it. People aren't as steady a thing to depend upon. Fickle thing, the human brain, as is proven by the abrupt switch flipped in my own that had provided me with a sweet and singular measure of sudden apathy that lasts to this day. And it's not like you can buy friends at the local 7-11, so when you run out of them, that's it. You're out.
And much like cigarettes, booze or psychological drugs, most people aren't worth the side effects.
I remain an addict, though. That's a thing bleated about by every AA and NA member in the history of the organizations, and while I certainly have issues with some of the philosophies put forth by said organizations, that one is right spot-on one-hundred-percent correct. Once an addict, always an addict. You never get to escape it. Sometimes the thing in your chest is a roaring beast in the dark, other times it is a mosquito, easily swatted aside. But it never goes away. It is something you have to keep a constant eye out for, lest it creep into the back of your skull and whisper oh, what's the harm, it's only one. And never mind that it is never, not ever, only one.
Why do I mention this, mention any of this? It's not a comfortable thing to talk about, after all. I see you all shifting from foot to foot and looking away awkwardly, don't think for a second I don't know it. Why have I done this, admitted to this terrible crack of weakness at the very heart of me?
Honestly?
Because fucking Elin Hilderbrand doesn't know addiction from Adam, and her portrayal of it is weak and pathetic and watered-down, addiction for the beach-reading set, and that has made me very angry. A spa?! Really? An addictive personality is something to be looked down upon because upon being introduced to a spa, the character relaxes into a joyous puddle of goo? We're going to say THAT'S the danger of an addictive personality at work? REALLY?! Fuck you, Elin Hilderbrand, who is not an alcoholic and is not an addict and knows nothing of what being an addict is really like and who shouldn't have even tried to write that mental state OR the mental state of the people exposed to it without doing a modicum of research into the premise itself first.
(Disclaimer: this is not to say that Elin Hilderbrand didn't do any research into it. Maybe she did. I don't know, maybe she actually has a relative with an addiction problem or something. If you are Elin Hilderbrand, I'm sorry for portraying you as a bad writer. You're not terrible! You're just like every other author of womenly beach-reads everywhere.)
(Disclaimer In Addendum: this is not to insult the beach-readers of the world. You read what you read, I don't care about that!)
(Counter-Disclaimer: No, fuck you, Elin Hilderbrand, this book is stupid and cookie-cutter and exactly like every other mediocre brainless general-fiction-book-for-women ever. It has nothing in it to set it apart and your writing is mediocre at best.)
(Disclaimer Realization: Four things I've been addicted to in my life. Cigarettes, alcohol, people and disclaimers.)
An addictive personality is defined by Wikipedia as,
"a particular set of personality traits that make an individual predisposed to addictions. People who are substance dependent are characterized by a physical or psychological dependency that negatively impacts the quality of life of the person. They are frequently connected with substance abuse, but people with addictive personalities are also highly at risk of becoming addicted to gambling, food, pornography, exercise, work, and even relationships (codependency). People engaged in addictive behavior tend to plan their lives around it."
Addictive personality disorder is not listed in the DSM-IV, a surprising thing in this day and age of clinical diagnoses and subsequent druggings-unto-death of anything from an inability to pay attention to an unwillingness to follow directions to the tendency to feel sad every once in awhile for no particularly good reason. If you want my admittedly cynical opinion on the matter, this is likely because you can't give an addict expensive drugs to take away his or her tendency to get addicted to things. Because they'll get addicted to them. There is no way for pharmaceutical companies to make money off of them; they are, therefore, disregarded by the part of the psychological community in charge of what does and what does not go into the DSM-IV.
(Disclaimer for those with a tendency to write nasty emails if I do not back up with fact every single point I make that might be insulting to anyone, anywhere: I may be incorrect in this assessment. My apologies to the psychological community in general if this turns out to be the case. There's an off chance I will be researching this further; I promise if I turn out to be horribly off-base about this, I will come back and admit it.)
(Counter-disclaimer: fuck you, for making me feel the need to have to disclaimer something that might insult the psychological community. In fact, fuck the psychological community. For every psychiatrist that does good in the world, there's twenty assholes who are in it for the money and couldn't care less about this overly-medicated society in which three-year-olds are given drugs that turn them into fucking ZOMBIES because their parents can't handle actually having to parent a fucking toddler.)
(Counter-counter-disclaimer: this is not to say that all drugs are bad and the entire psychological community sucks. I understand that there is a genuine need to medicate disorders that genuinely exist.)
(Counter-counter-counter-disclaimer: No, seriously, FUCK YOU for making me have to defend myself in this manner. I'm done disclaimering.)
<cough>
What the DSM-IV does do is set up the criteria by which dependence and abuse can be defined. And that is the limit on the amount of research I'm willing to do at this point in time, since it appears to be having an odd effect on my disclaimer policy.
What is addiction? It is a grasping, sucking, black hole in the precise center of your chest. It howls when you're bored, screeches when you're lonely, and keeps up a chattering thrum all the rest of the livelong day. It pulsates. It clutches and gibbers at your heart, circles and wheels and mutters justifications in your head, and condenses the world down to two things and two things only:
what it is you want, outlined in a clear shining white,
and everything else, dim and grey and unimportant.
I have, in the course of my life, been addicted to three things: smoking, drinking and a variety of social relationships. Smoking, I appear to have given up entirely one day when I suddenly realized I hated the taste. This is significant because I had tried to give it up when my husband found out about it, and didn't. I had tried to give it up when I promised various friends I would, and didn't. Why I finally did give it up is actually something of a mystery; one day I loved it, loved the smell, loved the taste, and the next I didn't.
Drinking is not the problem it used to be, but then, I'm happier than I used to be. I haven't been actively drunk since the episode that forced into the light the absolute depth of the problem. I do still have a drink from time to time, more than one drink from time to time. That's not the problem, I feel. The problem is that I always want a drink, and upon having one, I always want another, then another and another and another. The nature of addiction, the vacuum of the soul.
Social dependency isn't a problem anymore. It went the way of smoking; I woke up one day and had lost my taste for people. Well. That's not strictly accurate. I still like them. I just don't need them to provide what they can't provide me with anyway, and thus no longer seem to expect it. People aren't as steady a thing to depend upon. Fickle thing, the human brain, as is proven by the abrupt switch flipped in my own that had provided me with a sweet and singular measure of sudden apathy that lasts to this day. And it's not like you can buy friends at the local 7-11, so when you run out of them, that's it. You're out.
And much like cigarettes, booze or psychological drugs, most people aren't worth the side effects.
I remain an addict, though. That's a thing bleated about by every AA and NA member in the history of the organizations, and while I certainly have issues with some of the philosophies put forth by said organizations, that one is right spot-on one-hundred-percent correct. Once an addict, always an addict. You never get to escape it. Sometimes the thing in your chest is a roaring beast in the dark, other times it is a mosquito, easily swatted aside. But it never goes away. It is something you have to keep a constant eye out for, lest it creep into the back of your skull and whisper oh, what's the harm, it's only one. And never mind that it is never, not ever, only one.
Why do I mention this, mention any of this? It's not a comfortable thing to talk about, after all. I see you all shifting from foot to foot and looking away awkwardly, don't think for a second I don't know it. Why have I done this, admitted to this terrible crack of weakness at the very heart of me?
Honestly?
Because fucking Elin Hilderbrand doesn't know addiction from Adam, and her portrayal of it is weak and pathetic and watered-down, addiction for the beach-reading set, and that has made me very angry. A spa?! Really? An addictive personality is something to be looked down upon because upon being introduced to a spa, the character relaxes into a joyous puddle of goo? We're going to say THAT'S the danger of an addictive personality at work? REALLY?! Fuck you, Elin Hilderbrand, who is not an alcoholic and is not an addict and knows nothing of what being an addict is really like and who shouldn't have even tried to write that mental state OR the mental state of the people exposed to it without doing a modicum of research into the premise itself first.
(Disclaimer: this is not to say that Elin Hilderbrand didn't do any research into it. Maybe she did. I don't know, maybe she actually has a relative with an addiction problem or something. If you are Elin Hilderbrand, I'm sorry for portraying you as a bad writer. You're not terrible! You're just like every other author of womenly beach-reads everywhere.)
(Disclaimer In Addendum: this is not to insult the beach-readers of the world. You read what you read, I don't care about that!)
(Counter-Disclaimer: No, fuck you, Elin Hilderbrand, this book is stupid and cookie-cutter and exactly like every other mediocre brainless general-fiction-book-for-women ever. It has nothing in it to set it apart and your writing is mediocre at best.)
(Disclaimer Realization: Four things I've been addicted to in my life. Cigarettes, alcohol, people and disclaimers.)
I feel compelled to comment. I've very nearly felt compelled to comment before, but this time...yeah. I have experience with both alcoholics and the general field of psychotherapy.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't disagree about psychiatrists being all too ready to dole out meds , I think that I can speak to your point about Addictive Personality not bein listed in the DSM.
"Having and Addictive Personality" is not, in itself, diagnosable. If you read through the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, IVth edition" you will find several disorders which could, ostensibly, be linked to having an addictive personality. However, it is far too broad a category to be useful either Diagnostically or Statistically. Instead, you have smaller, quantifiable problems, such as Substance Addiction, Dependent Personality Disorder, etc. Mostly because these sorts of terms are far more useful for actual treatment of the people who fit the descriptions, and, as you said, it otherwise becomes a problem of too broad a treatment. (Like the massive uptick in diagnoses of ADHD and subsequent ritalin prescriptions once that became a recognized disorder)
I could go on and on and on and on and youcanguesstherest, but I won't. I may email you instead. My main point, I think, is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater (Another horrific expression, if you think about it, how many children have we lost this way?!) in that, yes, there are certain biases in the field, as in most fields, and these are generally perpetrated by the sort of quick-buck-making scum that crop up anywhere a wallet is cracked open. However, there are countless lives that have been changed for the better by psychologists and psychiatrists (also a loaded distinction) and I'll stop now before this becomes a rant, or me flapping my gums.
~G~
PS-Also, if you read through the DSM IV, you will think that you and everyone you've ever cared about is certifiably nuts. Don't worry, you're probably correct in that judgement.
Note to self: the next time you feel like going on a vitriolic rant about the psychiatric community at large, keep in mind that G is married to a psychiatrist.
ReplyDeleteHe's also smarter and better read than you are, self.
Pardon me while I get off my high horse, G and everyone else. Sometimes I get full of myself and need to be slapped around a bit, and G just did it with more class and style than I probably would have. SO THANK YOU G. PLEASE DO EMAIL ME THE REST. Or hell, yeah, put it here, because after posting, I got to thinking about it and I'm seriously interested in learning more.
I already think I and everyone I know are nuts, dude. In fact, I got PROOF on ninety percent of you.
Talk more later! AND TELL YOUR WIFE I DON'T THINK SHE'S AN ASSHOLE.
Our main weapon is surprise.
ReplyDeleteThat's two weapons. Surprise and fear.
And ruthless efficiency.
AMONGST our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency.
And an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.
I'll come in again.
Don't make me get out the comfy chair! (Or...the comfy...psychiatrists...couch?)
ReplyDelete