Tag Archives: Addiction and mental illness

Spared from relapse: of divorce, sex addiction, and angels in hoodies

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I got an email yesterday, asking me about advice for dating again after a divorce. It’s a post I intend to get to next week.

But something in the query reminded me of an another question I’d been asked by a mentee of mine. The mentee asked “Since you got sober and had your conversion, have you ever come really close to slipping back into old behavior?” The answer I gave dovetails with that of what one does after a divorce. I’ll share a story.

It was summer 2002. My third wife, E., had told me she didn’t want to be married to me anymore. E and I had met online (Matchmaker.com) in January 2000; she was finishing her doctorate at Fuller Seminary, I was 18 months sober and falling in love with Christ all over again. She had never been married before. I was eager to build a life with someone who shared my faith, shared my values, and was willing to accept a very troubled and turbulent past. E and I moved quickly; we were engaged within weeks and married in early 2001.

As I’ve written before, my third wife and I had terrific intellectual and theological compatibility. We also had very little physical chemistry. I saw that as a plus. I had grown mistrustful of “heat” with another person — in my experience over the course of many years and many relationships, the most intense sexual relationships were invariably the most unhealthy. I ought to have known better, but at this stage of my recovery, I equated heat with danger. I thought of the line I’m too lazy too look up (but I think it’s from one of the translations of Medea), the one in which a Greek chorus prays for a “small fire” of love, just enough to warm a house — but not a big fire, which will invariably burn the house down. Having burned down many houses, as it were, I was ready for something different.

My third wife did me the great favor of leaving me. We were not cruel or unfaithful or dishonest. We were incompatible in a very basic way, a way that could not be overlooked. She was unwilling to settle for kindness and conversation alone; she wanted passion, and that was something we could not generate. She promised me that I would thank her someday for leaving. I have done so. She is remarried, as am I. I hope that her new marriage is joyous.

In any case, back to 2002. I was heartbroken when E left. I also experienced a brief crisis of doubt. I doubted God. I doubted the wisdom of staying sober. The perfect narrative of fall and recovery had been shattered; I wasn’t supposed to get divorced again, not now that I was sober and faithful. In my mind, I had done “everything right this time” and still things hadn’t worked out. And as a consequence, I began to flirt with the idea of going back to old behavior. I don’t mean drinking again — that option wasn’t on the table. I meant returning to casual promiscuity.

I moved out of the home E and I shared in early October, 2002. I had rented a small apartment a few miles away. And I had a date lined up for that first weekend with a woman I’d known for years. To heck with celibacy again, I thought; I’d done that as a healing tool before. What I wanted was new skin. I was in danger of going back to a pattern I’d stayed away from for many years.

But I never went on that date. The day before I moved out, one of my favorite students, Katie, came to my office. Katie had taken a few of my classes, and regularly visited me in office hours. Katie had been “out” for quite some time; she had been in the first gay and lesbian history course I had taught at PCC. Katie had been dating her girlfriend, Jackie — whom I knew vaguely but who hadn’t been my student — for about six months.

Katie was in tears. She told me that Jackie had been chronically unfaithful to her. Jackie was sexually compulsive, she said, hooking up with and having nearly-anonymous sexual encounters with both men and women. Jackie kept pledging to stop — and kept breaking those promises. She had begged Katie to stand by her, and Katie had tried, but was now at wits end. “I’m ready to leave”, Katie told me. “But I was wondering if you would be willing to reach out to Jackie. I know your story, and I know you went through some of these same issues. I trust you, Hugo, and I was wondering if you could take Jackie to some meetings and see if you could help her.” Continue reading →

In the script, sincerity

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Count me among those who watched and was moved by Tiger Woods’ statement last Friday.

I didn’t see it live, but watched the replay twice. I watched with the eyes of someone who has spent years in and around Twelve Step programs, someone who has been graced with double-digit years of recovery from a disease that nearly killed me. I watched as someone who experienced a wide variety of addictions ranging from alcohol to drugs to sex to food to exercise. I watched, and was struck by how far Woods was from other celebrities caught in similar scandals — his contrition was absolute rather than conditional, his willingness to recognize his own grandiosity spot on and welcome.

It was scripted, of course. But we make a huge mistake when we imagine that a rigid dichotomy exists between the “scripted” and the “heartfelt”. Indeed, in my experience, reading a statement of amends aloud was invariably more sincere. For those of us who have struggled with what might be called sex addiction, we are accustomed to seductive behavior. I learned early on that I can write from the heart more easily than I can speak from it. As someone who is very comfortable — perhaps too comfortable — speaking extemporaneously, I know that if I start making it up as I go along, I will tend to shape my words and my cadence and my rhythm in ways that I hope will get a specific reaction. Years of acting and improvisational work and years in the classroom have made me an stute reader of audiences — if I can deviate from a script, I usually will. That is particularly true when I’m conveying something difficult and painful.

My Twelve Step sponsors not only made me write things down, they made me write out the amends I was to make. The late Jack Kissell insisted that I not deviate from a written script when I made amends. He was a stage actor, and saw in his sponsee that same performer’s need to pander to an audience. He asked me to write out my amends statements, and read them to him first — and then, if the time was right, read them verbatim and without embellishment to the persons who needed to hear ‘em. For me — and I suspect for most of us accustomed to getting what we want through the application of talk and charm — there is much to be said for the honest virtue of a simple script from which no deviation is possible! And when I saw and heard Tiger reading his statement last week, I thought I saw a fellow addict doing exactly the right thing at this stage of what will be a long recovery.

Sex addiction is real. I’ve been addicted to many things: drugs (prescribed and illicit); alcohol; pornography; sex; sugar; dieting and compulsive exercise. For me, addiction has both a physical and a mental component; as the AA Big Book puts it, it is always both “an allergy of the body and an obsession of the mind.” I’ve experienced the cravings as pressing physical imperatives, and I’ve experienced them also as psychological obsessions that will not release their grip. What was true of opiates was true of affairs with women; what was true of vodka became true of the need to run and run and run and run. Addictions move laterally as we grow. Letting go of all of them is a very, very long process. And sex certainly deserves to be considered an addiction in the same category as addiction to alcohol or opiods – the compulsion is similar in its inexorable demand, and the damage the addiction wreaks is no less great.

So, two cheers for Tiger. When you’ve been proved a fraud and a liar, when you realize that you’ve become so tangled in a self-spun web of deceit that even those who love you most can no longer trust you, you’re near your bottom. And when you get to that bottom and you ask for help, when you let others who know better guide every facet of your recovery process, when each day becomes simply about doing the next right thing — then, then, then you are available for the miracle. It’s no guarantor of forgiveness; I’ve lost more than one marriage to my compulsiveness. Sometimes folks forgive you but still can’t love you; sometimes they still love you but can’t live with you. Your recovery must progress regardless. I learned all that, and by some strange grace, I still remember that lesson.

In his discomfort as he stood before many of his loved ones, reading haltingly from a prepared script, Tiger looked and sounded genuine to me. We who spent years having only a passing relationship with the truth will never convince everyone we have at last found sincerity. But when we do as he did last Friday, and read from a text in which we accept full responsibility for actions that have no excuse, we’re taking one giant step forward. Here’s hoping that the fierce urgency of the newly sober remains for Tiger in the months and years to come. And here’s giving thanks that after so many wrong things, he’s done the next right one — and done so in a way that is congruent with the most effective and life-transforming recovery strategies known.

“I’ll show you!” Of fidelity, reciprocity, drunkenness, and fear

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I got a note from a former student of mine last week. Sophrosyne writes:

I know it has been a while since I’ve spoke to you, but I am going to lose my mind or at least it feels like it. I have been dating this man for seven months and two weeks ago I made the mistake of driving drunk. This is an extremely sensitive issue for him because three years ago he lost a girlfriend (she got hit by a drunk driver while driving) and a best friend (similar scenario). I know it was a terrible mistake to make, it was something I’d never done before and am quite sure I will never, ever do again. I didn’t get caught or into an accident, and that is a miracle. But my boyfriend found out anyway.

Ever since the incident he has been very upset with me. He has remained in the relationship, but I feel that he is being very disrespectful. He has been hanging out with past lovers and ex-girlfriends, spending lots of time with them on the phone and in-person (something he had agreed not to do when we got together.) I don’t know what to do or think. He tells me he loves me, but I feel like I am being punished. I made the decision to give him one month as of February 1st to either try to forgive me and move forward or I will walk away from him.

I feel like a fool for tolerating his behavior, but at the same time I did make a mistake. In his mind, he feels that driving drunk is worse than cheating. I need advice…I am having difficulty sleeping, eating, studying, just functioning. I don’t know what to do.

Soph gets that she made a mistake, one that could have had deadly consequences. Since she gives her word it was a one-off, I don’t know that there’s much more that can be said about her drink driving incident.

Many years ago, when I was much younger and far more willful than I am now, I behaved similarly with a girlfriend of mine. “Ethel” and I had met in a sober living house, and despite warnings from those who knew our fragile state better than we, we embarked on an instant and intense relationship. We ended up spending eighteen months together on and off, moving into our own place when we were both thrown out of the sober living situation. As it turned out, I had an easier time getting sober than she did (though this was long before my last relapse in 1998). While I began to put weeks and months together, Ethel had a hard time staying clean for more than a few days at a time. For the first time in my life, I found myself in a co-dependent relationship with an addict whose disease was, at least in its obvious manifestations, worse than my own. I drove home from school each day, my stomach in knots, wondering if Ethel would be sober — and if not, in what condition she and our little apartment would be.

Eventually, I started cheating on Ethel. My rationalization was much the same as that of Soph’s boyfriend: I was giving myself some emotional protection from hurt by seeking consolation with others. Ethel found out (when it came to covering up my infidelities, I was about as subtle as a kibbutznik at a D.A.R. convention). We had volcanic arguments. I justified my cheating by pointing to her drinking, suggesting that if she wanted me to be faithful, she needed to be sober. I insisted that I was entitled to a quid pro quo relationship (I remember that even as I made it, the argument sounded false, ugly, and hollow.) Ethel pointed out that the thought of me sleeping around was hardly an encouragement to get sober. And on it went, month after month. I “cheated at” Ethel; she “drank at” me. It was one of the more painful relationships of my life, both because I was (despite my inability to live up to any sort of commitment) desperately in love with Ethel, and because I was choking on my own sense of fraudulence and narcissism.

Soph and her boyfriend aren’t quite where Ethel and I were. But it seems clear that he too is using the “quid pro quo” argument; he too is “cheating at” his girlfriend. Soph is not chronically drink-driving (something Ethel did with alarming regularity, even after her license was suspended), but she is being punished just the same. Of course, her boyfriend’s fears are powerful, linked as they are to his own painful memories of loss. Many of us respond to fear by trying to anesthetize ourselves, which is one reason why I so regularly cheated on Ethel. Flirtation and intrigue with others outside of our primary relationship, even if physical sex doesn’t take place, is a powerful prophylaxis against getting hurt — it is a marvelously passive-aggressive response. On some level, Soph’s boyfriend probably knows that he is dodging the issue and taking the easy way out, and I suspect that stings him.

Fidelity, for the umpteenth time, is not just a promise to a partner. It’s a promise to ourselves: a promise that we are not the sort of person who will quickly turn into a liar or a cheat. Obviously, if a relationship comes to a clear and final end, then the expectation of fidelity ends with it. But while a monogamous relationship continues, part of being a grown-up is not making one’s fidelity contingent on the other person’s day-to-day behavior. If my wife is cross with me, or annoys me in some way, I am not justified in seeking sexual or romantic solace with someone who will, ahem, “understand.” The whole “I’ll show you!” aspect of conditional monogamy is not only juvenile and reflective of an incomplete understanding of what a relationship requires, it is clear and incontrovertible evidence of fear and the inability to self-soothe. Soph’s boyfriend is entitled to be angry that she drove while drunk. He is entitled to share with her his own particular reasons for reacting so strongly to the incident. And she does owe him a promise that it won’t happen again.

But Sophrosyne doesn’t owe her beau her patience while he displaces his anger and anxiety into flirtations, intrigues, or worse with his exes. Her mistake is not a justification for his abrogation of his commitment to put all of his romantic and sexual energy into her. And despite her serious error, she has not lost her right to demand that he not only bring her all of that energy, but bring her his pain and fear and his truth as well.

Jack Kissell, 1930-2009

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I read this morning of the death of Jack Kissell, a legendary figure in Southern California recovery circles, and my “sponsor” (on and off) for many years during the 1990s and the beginning of this decade.

Alcoholics Anonymous and the legion of Twelve Step programs that sprang forth from it have always insisted on, as the name implies, anonymity for its members. (In my writing, I’ve danced very close to the edge of “outing” myself, of course, but on this blog claim no membership in any particular organization.) For years, it has generally been understood that the anonymity requirement ended with death; it is common in public obituaries to note a long-standing period of sobriety in AA or other groups. Jack, who died at 79, died with 38 years sober.

In my recovery, I’ve had many sponsors. Two have stood out: my friend Jenia B., a woman just four years my senior but with (today) over a quarter century of sobriety who brought me into the heart of what is often called “the program”, and Jack Kissell, who took me through the twelve steps with insight and humor and Irish relentlessness. Jack sponsored hundreds of men and women around the country, and how he found time to talk so intimately and warmly with each is simply miraculous. For years, he and his beloved Jean lived in an apartment near the water in Redondo Beach. Time and again, I drove down to see him, to “read him my inventory” or talk about a specific problem. We always finished our conversations by moving from a discussion of sobriety to Jack’s second-favorite topic, Notre Dame football. I saw him on the stage many times in productions across Los Angeles; he was a delightful character actor who could, like so many sober alcoholics, perform both menace and vulnerability with ease.

I’ve referred to Jack before on this blog, never by his full name. It was Jack who taught me to “do the NEXT right thing”, who taught me what fidelity really looked like, and who gave me – at least for a short time — the gift of celibacy. And it was Jack who first taught me these lines:

If you want what you’ve never had, you have to become what you’ve never been. To become what you’ve never been, you’re gonna have to do what you’ve never done.

It is not the melodrama of a eulogy that leads me to note that I might very well not be alive without his wisdom, his kindness, and his love. Jack Kissell and I hadn’t spoken since 2000, after a foolish falling-out. (The fault was entirely mine, and I confess I held a entirely unjustified resentment against Jack for a long time.) I always meant to call him again, and never made the time. I am glad that while he was my sponsor, I was able to express my profound gratitude for his loving presence in my life, and glad that I am now able to give public credit where credit is due. I know that many folks have found comfort in things I’ve said or written that I learned from Jack, and they ought to know his full name.

We’re all on a journey, going through a process, and it would be far more lonely and far more terrifying without the wisdom of those just a bit further down the road. Jack’s gone farther along now, to the other country, and in due course, all whom he loved and sponsored will follow him there. But the good he did — for he was a very, very good man — will last, kept alive by the many he taught who will, over and over again, repeat his insights.

Sobriety, gratitude, and ambition

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I was talking with an old friend of mine recently, a fellow with whom I got sober many years ago. He and I both have double-digit years clean from drugs and alcohol. We spoke of how far we’d come, and shared memories of the “bad old days”. There’s an old maxim (perhaps from Cicero) about the delight one takes in remembering past sufferings, and addicts who have a long time clean and sober live the adage more fully than most. We’re not wistful for a painful past, mind you, merely keenly aware of how far it is that we’ve come. The swapping of old “war stories” serves to remind us of the miracle of recovery.

In the first few years of transformation after hitting rock bottom in 1998, I considered it a miracle that I was even alive and well, not in prison or confined to some other sort of institution. That I had kept my teaching job and even acquired tenure while leading such a dishonest and self-destructive existence seemed evidence of a huge portion of unmerited grace. I was overwhelmed by gratitude, and in case I got complacent or self-congratulatory, was surrounded by friends and family who reminded me of my past at every opportunity. As a result, I set modest goals for myself: keep my job, stay sober, “suit up and show up” for life. Eventually, the goals expanded to include the pursuit of an enduring and successful marriage. And in time, the goal grew further: to bring a child into this world. Everything I’ve wanted has come, though not without prayer and effort and disappointment along the way. For someone with my track record, with my history of mental illness and addiction, these are extraordinary blessings — and it would be unmitigated gall to ask for anything more.

But I also recognize that contentment is close cousin to complacency, and complacency doesn’t serve me (or most other addicts) well. I’ve got a job I love which provides income and fulfillment (a combination that eludes many). I’ve got a marriage and a healthy child and a community of friends. My extended family loves me and trusts me, and I them. But particularly since HCRS was born, I’ve felt within me this gnawing sense that there is more to be done, that I am in danger of not fully living up to my potential. It isn’t just about making more money, though that is perhaps part of it — it’s about the danger of not achieving all it is that I’m called to be. The as-yet unwritten books are clamoring to be composed, the more public life that I’ve alternately shunned and longed for urges me to think beyond the rhythms of the academic calendar and domestic duty, to put myself “out there” in new ways.

This growing ambition contends with another voice in my head. This voice reminds me, over and over again, of my troubled past. It doesn’t shame me; rather, it warns me not to overreach, not to push too hard, not to want too much. It asks: Where is your gratitude for all that you’ve accomplished? Where is your humility? Isn’t it enough to be healthy, employed at a job you still love, needed by family, adored by the miracle that is your daughter? It asks: What sort of hubris is it that says “I still want more”?

I don’t ever want to lose sight of how far it is I’ve come. Most people who’ve been handed the diagnoses I’ve been handed, who’ve struggled with the addictions I’ve struggled with, are not as blessed. Some of my old friends are dead; others are still in the grip of a disease that will not let them go. But I do not honor them by adopting a false modesty, a distorted humility. There is more to be done, much more to be done, and I am aware as I’ve never been before of the tragedy of unmet potential. I’m choosing now to push for “more” in every sense, even as I give fervent thanks for how far I’ve come. Gratitude is good, but not when it becomes an excuse to ignore the hunger to push on, to go further. For me, the hunger is to reach a wider audience and to be ever more creative in finding ways to do so. And I’m determined to silence the voice that says an addict like me has no right to ask for more.

A note on relapse

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Among my friends in recovery, and among some of the young people I mentor, there seems to be a small epidemic of “relapsing” going on. A “relapse” or a “slip” refers to a return to old, addictive or self-destructive behavior after a period of sobriety, abstinence, or healthier decision-making.

I’ve worked to give up many things in my life, behaviors or habits which were hurting me or those around me. Alcohol, drugs, self-injury, sexual acting-out — I’ve had years away from these, and have a considerable amount of what in Twelve Step circles is called “time” away from these. One day at a time, as they say, I work to keep my spiritual foundation strong and my boundaries in the places that they should be. I don’t struggle with a lot of temptation anymore around alcohol, drugs, or sex — though I’m not vain enough to believe that I’m incapable of a future slip in any of these areas. Continued growth, as they say, is contingent on regular (daily) spiritual and psychological maintenance.

I do have habits I have a harder time letting go of. Though I don’t smoke regularly any more, I’ve had the occasional cigarette a time or nine over the years, though none since Heloise was born. I’ve given up diet sodas again and again, and then gone back to them — my compulsive consumption of caffeinated aspartame is something I fight against on a daily basis, usually losing the struggle. And though veganism has been an easy lifestyle to adopt, it has by no means ended some of the binge/purge behaviors that have characterized my relationship with food and my body since puberty. (I don’t throw up or starve myself anymore, and that’s progress.)

One mentee went back to using internet pornography compulsively last week; another returned to an abusive relationship she had had some success in leaving. Other friends have relapsed on drugs after some time “clean”. And I’ve been pounding down more soda than usual. It’s been “relapse week” all around, and so I thought I’d write a bit on the topic.

Whatever it is you’re trying to give up, whether it’s a bad relationship or a destructive habit, relapse of one sort or another is going to be part of the recovery process. I often point out to people that I went to my first AA meeting in April 1987, when I was nineteen — and got sober “for good” (God willing) more than eleven years later, after years and years of going in and out of the program. Whether the issue was alcohol or drugs or cigarettes or unhealthy one-night stands or cutting myself, I didn’t succeed in giving up what was unhealthy the first time I tried. Depending on the behavior, I’d put together a few weeks or months or even years before, as a result of one setback or another, relapsing spectacularly. (I had six years clean and sober from alcohol and drugs between 1990-1996 before a major slip.) Continue reading →

“Think it through”: a note on a tool for dealing with unwanted thoughts and fantasies

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I mentor — and in 12 Step parlance, sponsor — a number of folks working to overcome various addictions. Part of any program of recovery is sharing what you’ve learned with those newer to the transformation than you. I’ve written often of the rule of three, which I see as central in my own progress. I make sure that every work (or almost every week) I connect with someone with more wisdom and experience and “time” than I have; a second person who is a peer both chronologically and experientially, and a third person, almost always much younger, who is just beginning recovery or a spiritual journey. Even for introverts, the rule of three can work (I’ve seen it).

One of the issues that came up a lot for me when I was getting sober from my various addictions (alcohol, drugs, sex, food, and so forth), was dealing with the intrusive thoughts about relapse. I struggled enormously with the compulsion to “act out”, and at times in my early recovery it seemed as if virtually every situation in which I found myself presented a fresh set of “triggers” designed to get me back into old and destructive behavior. I had plenty of relapses along the way. (I went to my first AA meeting in 1987, but didn’t get sober “for good” until 1998 — eleven years of walking in and out of a revolving door.) I made countless promises to stop drinking and using, and countless promises to be faithful to wives or girlfriends. I would cobble together weeks or months of recovery until I encountered a seemingly irresistible temptation of one sort or another (the “accidental” discovery of a large cache of benzodiazepines in a family medicine cabinet; a surprise encounter with an old flame or a fellow newbie in a recovery program), and I would “fall” again. And even as I put together large periods of abstinence from destructive and dishonest behaviors, I was tormented by dreams about using and intense fantasies about hooking up with unfamiliar, as yet unexplored skin.

My sponsor gave me a tool that is the point of this post, one that I share with those whom I mentor. When it comes to intrusive thoughts or seemingly irresistible fantasies about doing something that is almost certainly a bad idea, there’s no point in fighting the thought. Saying to oneself “don’t think about that” doesn’t work well. If one is told in a firm voice, “Don’t think about elephants!”, the first thing that pops into one’s mind is probably a pachyderm. Rather than fighting a futile, shame-filled battle against one’s fantasies, it makes more sense, my sponsor said, to give oneself permission to have the fantasy. But — and here’s the key — one doesn’t have permission not to think the fantasy all the way through. I was told that if I wanted to drink again, I could imagine the heat of the liquor in my throat, the soothing warmth in my belly, the delicious sense of calm suffusing my whole body. But, I wasn’t allowed to stop there. I had to continue the fantasy. I had to envision the nausea, the stumbling, the peeing on my self once I passed out. (Yes, I was a wet-the-bed drunk. I know, TMI.) I needed to continue the fantasy into the next day — the hangover, the guilt, the fear of seeing people again, the worry about the harm I had done, that awful sourness in my stomach and soul.

With thoughts about acting out sexually, I was told to do the same thing. I couldn’t just do the pleasant parts of imagining taking someone new in my arms for the first time, the taste of her mouth and the thrill of slipping the clothes from our bodies as we tumbled into beds, backseats, or bushes. I needed to think through the awkwardness to come, the fear of being discovered, the shame of knowing I had crossed a line (for the umpteenth time) I had sworn not to cross. I had to imagine not just the erotic aspects of a desired encounter, but all of the possible harsh, inescapable consequences. I couldn’t stop the fantasies half-way through, in other words; I was allowed to daydream all I liked, but only if I carried the reveries to their inevitable conclusions.

By the time I was given this tool, I’d had enough deceit-ridden hook-ups and binges that I couldn’t possibly have any serious illusions that the next time — if there were to be a next time — would be different than all the times before. I knew what was so sweet going down would be so vile coming back up; I knew what seemed so transcendentally ecstatic at 1:00 in the morning would leave me feeling empty and shame-filled twelve hours later. It was a great tool my sponsor gave me; it liberated me from the seemingly hopeless responsibility for policing my mind, but it forced me to introduce the reality of consequences into my fantasies. There was an element of psychological aikido to the idea; rather than resisting what seems so irresistible, I was told to flow with the thoughts as they came, and using the sheer force of their flow to carry them past the point where I would normally stop. I was liberated to want what I wanted — but only if I went past the point where I had initially wanted to go.

The tool worked for me. It helped diminish the urges by connecting cause and effect more clearly in my mind. The sort of temptations I struggled with a decade a more or ago rarely come to me now, but come they occasionally do. I don’t fight the thoughts that come, or shame myself for having them; I calmly let them wash over me, and I ride them like a wave that rolls all the way to the shore. I know that I can’t stop the fantasy before taking it all the way, to the ecstasy — and past it, to the devastating consequences beyond. I recommend this “think it through” tool to the young (and not so young) whom I mentor, whether they call themselves addicts or not. From what I hear, it often works nicely for them as well, and I thought I’d share it today on the blog.

Equally addictive, not equally pernicious: more epic fail from Mary Eberstadt

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Mary Eberstadt is on a roll. A few months ago, she announced that “food was the new sex“, a conclusion I found historically inaccurate at best and deeply wrong-headed at worst. Clearly, however, our Mary has found what she regards as a fertile field; she’s back this month with Is Pornography the New Tobacco? (Since all good things seem to come in threes, prizes must go to those who guess the topic of her third installment. I’m tempted to write a first-century theological satire, based on debates among early Christians about changing purity laws: “Is Divorce the New Pork?”)

Like her food/sex thesis, Eberstadt’s suggestion that “Big Porn” mimics the earlier tactics of “Big Tobacco” seems alluringly insightful, but falls apart under scrutiny. She returns to her trope from the food-sex article by offering us “Betty” (a thirty-year old woman in the 1950s) and “Jennifer” (a contemporary thirty year-old) and contrasting their views on porn and tobacco.

Like many of her friends, and also like her husband Barney, Betty smokes cigarettes. She does so unselfconsciously and throughout the day — in the kitchen and most other rooms of the house, during her housecleaning, on the front steps, around the children, in the car, at the movies and in restaurants, even walking down the sidewalk. It’s not the sort of thing she gives much thought to, though when she does she sometimes feels conflicted. For Betty, the issue of tobacco may raise certain questions of expediency (she worries about the money she spends on it). She also wonders from time to time about its possible effect on her health, as people by 1958 are starting to talk about that too.

On the other hand, despite these occasional personal misgivings, Betty does not see smoking as a moral issue in its own right. It is rather, she believes, a matter of individual taste.

Jennifer, on the other hand, takes a similar stance on pornography:

On the one hand, like Betty, she does not think that this particular substance — in Jennifer’s case, pornography — poses any genuine moral issue. On the other, again like Betty, when she does stop to think about it she feels conflicted. From time to time, her boyfriend Jason has persuaded Jennifer into watching some together on the internet. On the outside, Jennifer goes along with this gracefully enough. On the inside, though, she is not so sure she likes it — more precisely, that she likes Jason liking it. One thing she is certain of is that Jason knows more about pornography than she does. She has more than once caught him unawares while he was watching it, and she’s overheard allusions to it among his friends.

Even so, and despite her occasional misgivings, about pornography as such Jennifer has the standard-issue generational opinion of her time. She is not a Kantian about it. She has her own personal likes and dislikes; she assumes everyone else does too. In sum, she does not think that pornography, when made by and for consenting adults, is morally wrong. She thinks it is a matter of individual taste.

Eberstadt is absolutely right that social mores change over time. This is not news. That which was unclean becomes clean; that which was permitted is now banned. (Think of the shift between the Torah and the New Testament on pork and divorce, for example, which I referenced above.) Of course, we have a responsibility to do more than accept social changes with a fatalistic shrug; we do need to be particularly critical about the ways in which our own sense of what is acceptable causes us to turn a blind eye to suffering. Continue reading →

Father Joseph Martin, 1924-2009

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Today would be my father’s 74th birthday. He’s been gone almost three years, and I think about him almost every day. That he never got to hold his granddaughter Heloise Cerys Raquel is a source of great sadness; the hope that I have that he sees her now is a great comfort. And most importantly, I pray that the gentleness he bequeathed to me comes through my words and my fingertips when I hold my baby girl.

Today I note the passing, too, of an influential figure in my recovery from addiction. Many an alcoholic or addict who went through treatment in the ’80s or ’90s will recognize the name “Father Martin”. Joseph Martin’s “chalk talks” about alcoholism, depression, and anger were marvelously insightful and comforting. His common-sense approach to the disease of alcoholism (and I remain a passionate adherent of the disease model) continues to shape how I think about my sobriety, though I haven’t seen any of his tapes in over a decade. Along with John Bradshaw and Leo Buscaglia, Father Martin was one of those popular (and often amateur) psychologists whose writing and whose VHS tapes were script and soundtrack for my recovery. Joe Martin saved a lot of lives, and made a lot of lives better. May there be joy and laughter as he comes to the far side of the Jordan.

Unlearning flirting and letting go of “feigned fascination”

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I’ve worked with a mentee of mine for about a year who, while immensely bright, struggles with some sexual compulsivity issues. (Yes, this mentee is also in therapy; I’m not overstepping my role.) “Kelly” read this old post of mine about flirtation, and brought the subject up with me last week. Kelly asked: “How do I go about unlearning flirting? It’s like second nature to me, and it gets me in so much trouble.” I gave Kelly some tips, and thought I’d roll them into a post.

First off, I realize that when I talk about “unlearning flirting” it raises an obvious question: why would someone want to unlearn such a pleasurable and innocent pastime? For most people, flirting (once they figure out what it is) is exciting and pleasant; it offers an opportunity for thrilling little boosts to one’s self-esteem without great risk. It makes a lot of people feel just a bit more alive. Then again, the same might be said for alcohol. Some of my friends can take one or two drinks and stop; my experience over many years was that I couldn’t. I tried for years to drink in moderation, and failed spectacularly — all of my growth in the past decade or so has come since I became completely sober. No half measures for me in this area of my life. Kelly is someone also struggling with chemical dependency, but the primary addiction seems, to my experienced layperson’s eye, to be sexual compulsiveness. It is something with which I am all too familiar from my own life — and it is something which led me to conclude that at least for me (I speak for no one but a select group of my fellow addicts), flirtation was unhealthy and destructive.

I’ve written before about flirting, but never in detail about how I “unlearned it.” It was more difficult to do than quitting drinking, but for my recovery, just as essential. And the first step, of course, was acknowledging that flirting (or as I called it in Twelve Step programs, “intriguing” – used as a gerund) was making my life unmanageable. I was good at it, if by good we mean able to elicit positive responses from the folks with whom I flirted. I wasn’t always looking for sex itself (though I rarely turned that down); rather, I was looking for validation. The addict in me cared far more about ego gratification than about orgasm; knowing that I had aroused interest or desire was usually sufficient to satisfy me. At times, sex itself became a rather tedious, obligatory postlude to what had really mattered, which was getting the reassurance that someone wanted to sleep with me, or was at least interested in me on a physical/romantic level. It took me a while to realize that this was what I was doing; it was much more flattering to think of myself as a hyper-libidinous (if decidedly nerdy) Don Juan figure than to acknowledge the truth that I was just pathetically insecure, trading on chemical attraction and all of its attendant rituals to get the attention I craved.

I made an inventory of what I did when I flirted. I’d been practicing flirting since eighth grade, and over many years I’d developed a “bag of tricks” that tended to serve me well. (Parenthetically, these tricks were hopelessly ineffective in certain other countries. Traveling through Italy one summer when I was twenty, I gave up early on — whatever “game” I had had been developed with North Americans very much in mind!) Flirting was about words, of course, but also glances and the gentle but insistent erosion of normative physical boundaries. I realized I changed my voice, very slightly, and tended to hold a gaze just a second or two longer than the American standard. I leaned in towards people, affecting shyness or boldness based on what my intuitition told me would work. And I remembered the cardinal rule that my uncle Wolfgang had taught me when I was about ten: “Hugo, if you want to be popular, remember to be interested in what other people tell you. Even if they bore you, remember a few things that they say and ask them questions about what interests them. They will be fascinated that you find them fascinating.” I’ve never forgotten that last line, and it was the foundation stone on which all the little tricks were built. Continue reading →