Enduring Versus Enjoying: Musings on Addiction
In Costa Rica during a high school exchange program, trying to hitchhike back to Nicoya
The third time I blacked out from drinking was glorious.
Coincidentally, it was also the third time I drank. That’s pretty much how it worked for me: I drank, I blacked out.
This particular instance was on a dance floor in Costa Rica. I was doing a summer exchange program in Nicoya on the Guanacaste Pennisula and had landed with the warmest, most loving host family. They had six children and three of them were around my age.
My host siblings—they liked to have fun. So, on Friday night, when it was time to go to the discoteca, they insisted I come.
Problem was, that didn’t sound like my idea of a good time. So I dragged my feet, heming and hawing, but ultimately went. I wanted to be a good sport.
Then it happened. We showed up and one of my fellow exchange students was drinking a Smirnoff Ice. “Oooh, I’ll have one of those,” I thought, thrilled to be a high school student in a country where I could do whatever I wanted.
So I drank it (followed by many more) and had the time of my life. I loved every minute of that night. EVERY MINUTE. Even the ones I don’t remember. I’m sure of it.
That’s when I got it. I got the appeal of alcohol. Sure, I’d drank before. But I’d never had an experience like THAT. A glorious instance where something I dreaded turned into something I freaking loved.
And that’s how I got hooked. I drank pretty much every day of that trip (until my friends and I got put on hotel arrest while the rest of the group traversed Costa Rica), then every day that I could after that.
Live footage from hotel arrest
Alcohol was, for me, a guaranteed good time. If you wanted me to help you move and you provided some beers, I was going to have fun. If you wanted to spend 16 hours at the bar (which I frequently did), I was going to have fun. If you wanted to — basically anything. The activity no longer mattered. As long as there were drinks, I was going to have fun.
These days, 12 years out from cutting alcohol out of my life, I wonder how many addictions start with someone feeling like they found a silver bullet.
“Wait, all I have to do is put this magical substance in my body and then the thing I hate becomes something I love?!”
Even people who don’t ever cross the line into addiction, like the couples whose children only exist thanks to wine.
Now, I am (surprisingly, perhaps) an advocate for intentional substance use. I don’t think alcohol is evil, nor do I think drugs are bad. I believe strongly in the right of humans to alter their own consciousness and support doing so with liquids, tablets, plants…whatever floats your boat.
But I don’t particularly care to live in a world where people think they’re broken for having different preferences.
Take me, for example. I hate “hanging out.” Hours upon hours of sitting around chatting makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It doesn’t matter who you are or how much I love you. It’s an activity that I don’t enjoy (if you happen to be an Enneagram Type 5, you probably feel the same way).
Now, if I wanted to freaking LOVE hanging out, I could throw a bottle of wine down my gullet. Or I could take other drugs. I know from experience that works for me. When I’m drunk or high, hours upon hours of “hanging out” is fun instead of painful.
But it feels like maybe it would be wiser to just speak up and say, “Yeah, that particular activity isn’t for me. You guys seem to enjoy it, so I’ll leave you to it, but I’m going to put in my headphones and go out for a walk.”
Are there things humans have to do when they don’t want to? Sure. Paying bills comes to mind.
But enduring things you don’t actually HAVE to do just because someone told you humans are “supposed to” like it? Feels unnecessary. Especially when there are things you genuinely enjoy, like wiggly walks or seven hours of journaling.
Just my two cents, though. I know plenty of people who think that life is an endurance competition and, the more you endure, the more you win. It’s possible they’re right. But I feel pretty safe betting against that possibility…
Maybe we need to include an “enduring vs. enjoying” chapter in our how to human book.
Wishing you a day full of the things you love,
P.S. As someone who has both experienced addiction and spent a significant amount of time exploring root cause resolution for the malady, I suggest that anyone who is an addict or loves an addict read up on the “addiction is more about a need to escape a painful reality than about pleasure-seeking tendencies” theory. It’s the best theory of addiction I’ve found. Podcast suggestion: Johann Hari on Dax Shephard’s Armchair Expert.
