Tonight’s featured ‘alcoholic and addict’ at gay Hollywood AA was a handsome 40-something working actor.  Incredibly he has been out for less than 10 years.  Because of shame and guilt which he medicated with alcohol and other drugs, he played a straight man through his mid 30’s, while living a secret life at night hooking up with guys on drug fueled sexcapades.

He started drinking as a college student, the normal amount – no more or less than other guys.  Of course, this is one of the first signs of the hapless alcoholic.  It was all downhill from there.  Like the typical alcoholic, he would find himself drinking and unable to stop despite his best intentions and efforts, except when he would have just one drink and then go online to look for meth, which was actually most of the time (except when he couldn’t find it in which case he’d masturbate and go to sleep).  Then he would take the meth — this is the ‘addict’ side of the disease kicking in — and then hole himself up in his room to enjoy the high.  Though usually he would end up going online again and looking for sex.  Once high on meth, his standards were almost nil, so it wasn’t too hard to find something quickly.

Nevertheless, he had no shame or guilt about this behavior.   His true shame and guilt was that he was gay — he didn’t want to disappoint daddy.  This was the core reason that he was drinking and drugging.  The fact that it usually lead to hookups was just coincidental (albeit ironic and convenient).

But the lifestyle was really killing him.  Finally he decided to come out, and guess what?  It turns out that everyone already knew!  Evidently he was not as great an actor as he thought he was.  But now that he was finally out, he no longer had an excuse to drink and drug to hook up with guys.  So he went to AA and stopped using for a few years.

But then it started again: the vicious power of the disease came back in full force.  Like the typical alcoholic, who thinks he can control his drinking like a normal man, he would just kick back and relax with just one innocent can of beer.  What could possibly go wrong?  But the experience always ended with a meth-fueled encounter with another one of LA’s most hideous trolls.  He was completely flummoxed by this.  Why was this happening?  He thought he had figured it out, and now he was back to “square one”.  (For you skeptics out there: he was truly baffled and frightened by his powerlessness over the disease.  He was definitely NOT acting. Or if he was, he deserves an academy award.)

Finally, he was able to stop his addiction for good.  First, he realized that beer is the devil’s drink, and children you should not drink beer.  But beyond that, the key is this: go to different groups.  By going to different groups you can really experience the full benefits of the AA program.

Now this man is running a youth group (18-24).  For him there is no greater joy than when a young person ‘gets it’: they realize that they can pretend to be trying to get serious about life, and be all self-aware and stuff, but then relapse when it’s convenient and blame their ‘disease’.  It’s the perfect scam to keep your parents on edge and avoid focusing on a career.  Thank you for helping to create a new generation of addicts!

—————-

I spoke with the good speaker’s sponsor, who was studying psychology and was planning to become an addictions counselor.  I mentioned that it’s quite common for addiction counselors to be ex-addicts themselves.  He said he recently interviewed for a position at a local hospital, and all the counselors who interviewed him were ex-addicts.  Why is that?  He explained: “Because only addicts know the real truth about addiction.”  Indeed.

The addiction myth is propagated in large part through actors, who are experts at pretending, and through ex-addicts, who have every interest in protecting their franchise (coupled with a lack of otherwise gainful skills).  It is a completely fake disease.  It is unclear to what extent they are aware of their own lies.  We as a society have never challenged them.