I’ve written it over and over and over, again and again and again. Addiction is boring.
I think William Burroughs is probably the only writer who got it right (write). (But I haven’t read a word by Bukowski.) When Burroughs wrote about his own addiction to heroin he wrote about the joy he found in coming across an almost endless supply of horse, because he wasn’t going to have to worry for a very long time. When he talked about quitting, he talked about Ayahuasca and how it probably was the only thing that cured him. But the one thing he didn’t talk about was “moral failings,” or “trauma,” or “internal pain.” He refused to turn addiction into a psychological issue, and that probably is another reason he refused to accept that his attraction to men was also a psychological issue. He simply didn’t believe the stories.
Now… huge caveat… I haven’t read a single William Burroughs novel in at least 35 years and the only one I read was Naked Lunch. I didn’t even read Queer. I was probably too frightened to buy a book with that title at that age in my life. So I’m think Queer plus my memories of Naked Lunch and they may be merging.
But what I can say is that it is repetitive. I am less than 100 days from quitting. I’d like to quit before I go to Africa in February. But basically this is the exact same position that happened the last time I quit. I am so incapable that I can barely get off the couch and one of the only reasons I go out at all is to get another bottle. In the old days, I had to plan ahead and make sure I had enough to last from Saturday to Monday because Sundays were “blue.” In the old days, I would sit on my couch and work on my laptop, until it was drink time. It’s no different now. I have a larger apartment so I have multiple places to sit, but sit is all I do until it’s time to drink. I then I feel relieved, a little bit, and especially elated if I haven’t gone through everything and don’t have to outside and pretend that I am okay. My friend Ellie is in the hospital and I can’t visit her because I’m not sure what she’d say if she saw me trembling from the DTs.
I’m sure some people know. They are too smart not to understand. But they also haven’t asked me to stop. BUT, it’s not their responsibility. It’s all on me.
And frankly, with the flood of incompetents and corrupt people supporting the rapist and felon in the next 3 days, I’m really not sure I want to quit anyway.
In Queer, the William Borough’s alter ego tells a doctor that he is in Mexico because the drug he is addicted to is not a crime, while it is a crime in the U.S. It was such an interesting and honest moment in the movie, you sometimes wonder why people in the U.S. can’t just say something so simply, and without guile or the need to flatter or the need to outdo a rival. This said, coming from New York City.
That being said, one time, on his ridiculous and truly awful reality show “The Apprentice,” Trump said something like, “New York is the most vicious city on earth.” Of course that’s not true. But it was a key to his addled mind. “I want to hate them.” That’s what he said about the Central Park 5, in his full page ads in the NYTImes, The NYPost, and the Daily News. The opinion piece was about bringing back the death penalty. As the anti-death penalty nun Prejaen reminded us, Trump went on a killing spree at the end of his term. He executed 16 people (or maybe 13) that were on Federal Death Row. He did it in January, after months of saying the election was stolen — proof enough that he knew he couldn’t stay. It was almost as if he said, “Oh, there’s something I forgot to do before I go. I want to kill a bunch of people.”
There is no one worse, in my lifetime, to take the job. And that includes his previous incarnation which was a shit show. But I don’t think it’s a reason to stay drunk.