Love and Kisses from My Padded Cell (excerpt)

Introduction

I am frequently asked how to differentiate between an addiction and a habit. I suppose people who know me are inclined to take stock of their own behavior in light of my work. They ask themselves: Have we crossed the imaginary line that divides in control from out of control?

In order to answer accurately, I need details beyond what shows on the surface. I have, after all, met many addicts who successfully keep their urges under wraps. Who knows? Maybe a large part of humanity lives this way. If you are thinking that addicts are all toothless hags and vagrants, welcome to the twenty-first century. If you harbor the notion that only an idiot becomes an alcoholic or a junkie, think again. As a psychologist specializing in addictions and compulsions, I have seen successful businesspeople juggle cocaine and sex while running companies. Some of the most pious men, meticulous about their religious practice, have come through my doors with shameful stories of lust and gambling. Creativity and high intelligence are no match for irresistible urges.

Anyone with strong, particular affinities might well wonder if these preferences are a source of danger. There is a mystique about addiction. People who live dull and sedentary lives are often dazzled by the addict's extremes. They gape in horror and fascination at the ease with which addicts are willing to compromise their sanity, good name and fortune; they weigh whether they, too, would be capable of this behavior.

But destruction by one's own hand is far less romantic up close. Addicts victimize themselves with a kind of thinking that does not let them make clear and logical choices. In hot pursuit of relief from the psychic itch, they do all it takes to make sure they get "fixed up."

Their ability to manipulate is impressive. They lie so sincerely, it's hard to trap them. Some are glib con-artists who will weasel you out of your last dime. They can be disgusting, despicable creatures. They can be charming, elegant and convincing. 

I am exploring here what people are willing to do in order to scratch that psychic itch. I want to emphasize the notion of willingness here; it's one's pure will that dictates these behaviors and thoughts. At some point, the addict consents to perpetuate his disease ad nauseam.

A person must be running away from something inestimably painful to willingly agree to expose himself to banishment, jail time, mental torture, public disgrace and the myriad of terrible things that happen to addicts. They allow their bodies to fall into ruin; too fat, too thin, collapsed veins, sores, scars and hair loss are just a few of the outward manifestations of this.

The addict is often extremely immature and seeks to relieve tension immediately. Gratification must be delivered to the front door at any hour of the day. Delay is intolerable. The addict is constitutionally incapable of waiting. Once an idea pops into his or her head, there is no negotiating to be done.

The gamblers fall into debt and fall from grace, succeeding in invoking the wrath of everyone around them.

The morbidly obese are met with disgust by the world at large, often reaching a point where no one will consent to share a meal with them.

Who wants to subject himself to the slobbering drunk, careening and shouting obscenities or spouting pseudo-intellectual tidbits?

The anorexic exasperates her family as they beg her to swallow just one more spoonful of honey. Weak as she is, she still has the power to refuse to do their bidding.

Obsessive-compulsives stick to ridiculous rituals that are primarily based in fear. They conduct themselves just like addicts, tenaciously clinging to their irrational behaviors. No logic on the planet can convince them to let go of the relationship they have with their thoughts.

To feed certain kinds of addictions, one is ready to associate with unsavory, even dangerous people. How they became unsavory is probably very closely linked to their own predilections and irresistible urges.

There is frequently no limit to how far addicts will go. But paradoxically, the drive to indulge in the addiction is often followed by severe bouts of remorse. The addict might very well declare: "I can't believe I did that... I am going to beat this... I am not going to ruin my life for this... I'll stop tomorrow..."

These qualms are short-lived and it is not long before the monster rears its ugly head and calls its victim back with sweet siren songs.

Not everyone experiences this cycle of regret, craving and using. There are addicts out there who are so helplessly lost that they don't undergo such moments of insight and the resolve to quit. They have become completely enmeshed in their lifestyles to the point that they can't envision separating from them. Other unfortunate victims of irresistible urges are totally fed up with their thwarted attempts at sanity and begin to believe they are doomed; all seems hopeless and impossible. Some addicts feel tortured every time they give in to their cravings, castigating themselves mercilessly. Others are so grateful to be out of their minds, they couldn't care less about lofty ambitions like abstinence and spiritual freedom.

Fortunately, an extraordinary thing happened in the first half of the twentieth century: a blessed group of drunkards came up with the ideas that are the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous, affectionately referred to as AA. In the years to follow, many other kinds of Twelve-Step anonymous programs came into being. They address a broad spectrum of addictions ranging from gambling to sex.

The heart and soul of the program are the Twelve Steps, which basically carry the addict from an admission of powerlessness all the way to a spiritual awakening. The program has proven to be the most successful way to achieve recovery and well-being. 

I once heard it said by the wise and funny Overeaters Anonymous guru, Judi Hollis: "We ruined it for you. You are never again going to be able to binge without regret." I too believe that once an addict has been exposed to the thinking of the Twelve Steps, it will be very hard for him or her to get away with little murders in the form of binging, gambling, or whoring without suffering  enormous pangs of guilt.

Perhaps it is only the relapsed addict, who has already tasted recovery, who is capable of realizing how dangerous the pursuit of a pick-me-up is.

* * *

This is a book about mishaps and failures, a book about ridiculous attachments and mind-boggling compulsions. There is no lack of tragedy, pathos and remorse; yet there will be a hint of the comic as we travel together through the lives of people who have run counter to their true essences and behaved like genuine jackasses.

The tales in this book speak for themselves. I honor their uniqueness and have therefore taken great pains to keep the details as accurate as possible while allowing myself the liberty of changing the geographies, names and some pertinent facts to safeguard the privacy of the narrators. In order to preserve the psychological integrity of this book, I give you real stories and not a dolled-up Hollywood rendition.

In that same spirit, I must say this: There is no perfect solution to the problem of addiction. The rehab where I work is not a typical recovery center and its success rate far exceeds other facilities around the world. In spite of this, I do not know the number of patients who were in treatment at our center and left, only to tumble back down into the grips of addiction. Recovery is hard to come by.

I am not the hero of this book. I will not extol my virtues as a psychologist who specializes in addictions and compulsions. This is not a book about how I turned lives around. There are many addicts I did not accompany to sanity.

The hero in each of these tales is neither the rehab counselor nor the Twelve-Step Program. The addict is the hero and the addiction is the villain; or maybe they both are the villain.

This book is about addicts who have allowed their excesses to rule them and destroy them. Some have been helped and some are still out there, floundering, only partially rehabilitated. 

Bear in mind, this does not make them weak. As you read their stories, I hope you will come to understand that any one of us can succumb to obsession. I hope that you will learn a little about how circumstances can make temptations seem irresistible. This is a reality many of us never have to face – but the truth is, no one is immune.