PART ONE
Allow me to introduce myself by saying, “I’m an addict”.
I was hospitalized in Homerton Hospital, East London, in early 2019 for drug and alcohol related health issues. My pancreas had swelled to the size of a rugby ball. It was soaked with so many poor life decisions, ranging from cocaine to climbing the corporate ladder, that I was told that I might not survive. Five-thousand four-hundred and seventy-two miles from my hometown, without a hand to hold, I almost died.
I don’t know what caused me to go down that road. Even today as I attempt to outline my climactic rise from bonfire drinker to fraternity hoodlum, lead happy hour texter, flight attendant worrier, full blown expatriate-alcoholic, and eventually, Intensive Care Unit in-patient, I have not been able to place a pin at the start of the story. However, ever since I began writing, this narrative has needed to come out of me. From my first writing class, I was tasked with summarizing myself in a fifty-word mini-saga and I couldn’t do that without fumbling over the word ‘addict’. This blog is an attempt to work out the details of these events, in writing.
Trust me, I wish I could put this into a work of fiction. Stamping somebody else’s name across the front page and pretending it didn’t happen to me would save me a great deal of stress and anxiety. I am sure my real friends would recognize references the spirit animal call outs to beach pigeons and my signature Saturday morning vomiting, to alleviate a hangover, but the truth is, what I hated most about addiction was the bullshit. Addiction comes hand-in-hand with lies; and there is nobility in being honest, even if it means I need to worry in quiet moments about what an old high school fling or former boss will think of me.
I owe a great deal of gratitude to the addicts who have come before me, because the strength to overcome the feeling of shame and the weight of social anxiety didn’t happen overnight. I am eternally grateful for works like Burrough’s masterpiece Junk and Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. They detailed the close brushes with the law and vibrant underbelly who find themselves willing to sell a childhood football trophy for an extra line. I hope to capture these insane circumstances and add the ridiculous nature of traveling.
Old friends and former colleagues, there is no need to blow up my phone right away. Names, locations, and dates have been changed to protect the identities of the innocent. Unless consent has otherwise been obtained or the situation absolutely calls for it—looking at you mom and dad—you’re safe from this confessional.
For my part, I promise to bring a side of addiction that in the millennial age. I was never bold enough to venture out into the 1000-acre woods alone: so I shoulder-tapped psychiatrists with Ivy League degrees who probably pushed more weight than the cartels and received menus for drug orders featuring emojis. Of course, whenever I got too messed up, I was never above crying in the bathroom, too.
What I plan to cover is the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing up in the age of technology with one foot in the VHS decade. There will be terrible online dating stories, the birth of EDM in America; there will be Instagram, Myspace, and AOL chat rooms. How the slow decline into burn out wasn’t solved by bouldering nor soul cycle.
It is my hope that this blog will give Millennials, Gen Z-era, and even Boomers, something to relate to. Addiction is being trapped. How there felt like no place to go: I couldn’t go to rehab because that would mean losing my job, I couldn’t quit my job because I needed to pay rent, and I couldn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want to let them down, so, I just kept digging deeper. If even one person out there feels less trapped or gets the help they need, maybe just a laugh, then I know that I have done my part. Life is too short to hide my worst traits behind a fictional character. Writing to me has always been about exploring emotions, so I hope that this blog will do that.
