It’s a bit more than two years ago that I had a conversation on addictions with a friend of mine over breakfast. You would probably think that soft-boiled eggs are easier to digest when accompanied by a lighter topic, but, you know, only a strong stomach is a good stomach…

I remember that the conversation actually started out with me commenting on the smoking (420) and drinking habits of a friend, which -to my mind- were bordering on addictive behavior. Of course I was sitting on my high horse, feeling oh so comfortable in the saddle of judgmentalism, when I proclaimed that I am one of those people who are absolutely not prone to addictions. Like NOT AT ALL. I mean, up to that point I had smoked the odd cigarette every now and again, without developing any form of nicotine addiction (at least that’s what I told myself), I’d never touched anything that officially classifies as a “real drug“, and after a night of serious partying, I had always sworn off alcohol for the rest of my life (which lasted at least a couple of days). So yeah, no danger zone in my department. And I firmly wanted to dissociate myself from all the weak addicts out there, who were simply not strong enough to exercise self-control. 

My friend took a prolonged sip of her jasmine tea, looked at me and said, “Hmm, I guess you’re thinking addictions a little bit too small-scale. Ok, maybe you’re not addicted to any substances, but there’s much more you can be addicted to. [pause] People, for instance…“

People?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!? Ok so you mean my obsessive inability to let go of significant others even if the relationship has long gone sour?

Cognitive dissonance! 

Needless to say, I felt the sudden urge to change the topic, coz this was getting uncomfortable. I mean, hello, I am a very self-reflective person and I have myself figured out. (Right? Haven’t I?) And I am NOT WEAK!!! Moving on. 

Well, two years and some serious soul-searching later I can assure you that I have more addictions than I can count. Now – before you stand me in the corner of severely troubled psychos (this is my approval addiction speaking), I guess it’s worth mentioning how an addiction can be detected. First things first: You can get addicted to basically anything and everything, as long as it hijacks your brain, feeds you with dopamine and distracts you from yourself. In fact, a lot of addictions are actually behavioral. There’s a litmus test by Gay Hendricks (quoted on actualized.org), which you can easily run on any behavior you suspect being addicted to: If you stop this particular behavior for 1 week straight and cravings arise, then that means you’re addicted. And obviously, the stronger the cravings, the more severe your addiction is. If, however, you stop the behavior and no cravings arise, then – congrats! – you’re not addicted. 

I hope you agree with me that 1 week is an effing long time for most pleasurable things not to engage in – especially in this day and age when instant gratification is the norm and not the exception. (You still counting?) 

And while there are a zillion things and behaviors you can be addicted to, the public perception and judgment of the various addictions deviates significantly. Ok, let’s try this out. Imagine you find out that your uncle has become a) an alcoholic or b) a workaholic. What do you consider “worse“? I’m guessing your answer is a). Why, though? Both are addictions, both are harmful, both may result in serious physical ailments. But while alcoholism still is a taboo topic surrounded by a lot of shame, being a workaholic might even render you applause and admiration. After all, we live in an achievement-oriented society and as long as you don’t catch a burnout, everything’s pretty awesome. Bottom line: Some addictions are better (“cooler“) than others. 

The other thing is that addictions are only frowned upon if declared as such. Your uncle jerks off to porn every day? So what, good for him! If he tells you he is a “porn addict“, however, I assume you’ll get ideas about him (and not the good ones). Similarly, it sounds way better and saner if you say you’re a “smoker“, than if you call yourself a nicotine/weed-addict. Note: “Addiction“ is a bad word, which you want to avoid at any cost. Having said that, if your addiction gets too obvious, others might do the labeling for you – with our without your consent. And you know how well labels can stick. So try to conceal your addiction(s) as best as you can (-especially those uncool ones that no one wants to talk about). 

There’s also an array of addictions which are so widespread that they don’t even count as an addiction anymore. Whoever can go without the internet, the smartphone or social media for one week or longer may cast the first stone. (No cravings, right? Lol)

Lastly, there are addictions which almost “look good“ on someone, as in: they form part of their image or identity or define a certain lifestyle. This is especially true for artists. Take sex, drugs and money – and you have the textual ingredients of most of today’s commercially successful rap music. 

I did 56 broads on the European tour and they was all crazy

I took 56 bars all in one month nigga and I’m still dranking

I could still see the scar on a nigga hand man shit real crazy

I been taking these molly’s, still nodding off cause a nigga too faded

I’ve been laying low key inside a nigga vault, money is my motivation

– Future, “56 nights“

Yep, that’s deep.  

I wonder if it’s even possible these days to be a successful rapper and not do at least some drugs (?) It’s part of the image – almost like a job description. You gotta be fluent in drugs. But it’s not only the hip hop scene, the music world in general seems to shine brighter with some pills and powders. If you have a look at the following chart, you see that of all celebrities who died from drug abuse, musicians constituted the biggest group:

Profession of celebrities who died from drug abuse between 1970 and 2015:

I think it’s a valid question why musicians are particularly prone to substance (ab)use, and there are probably a few plausible answers to that. Aside from using drugs to conform to the almost expected stereotypical rock’n’roll lifestyle, creativity is often paired with risk-taking, compulsiveness, impulsiveness and novelty seeking – a set of attributes which increases the willingness to experiment with drugs. In a 2016 FADER documentary, Mac Miller put it that way: “I’m always like if someone’s like ‘You wanna try this?’ -I’m like ‘Yeah, sure!’ And then it just kind of fucks you up when you have a bunch of money, coz like you try a drug and you like it, and you can buy a lot of it, you know, so I went through about everything.“

So yeah, being eager to try out new things is one side of the coin; the other is using drugs as a way to cope with your emotional issues. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Billie Eilish was asked how she felt about the music industry, to which she replied, “Mmm….the music industry, man… We’re all sad as hell. All these artists, we’re sad as shit, dude. Everybody I know that’s an artist – we are sad motherfuckers. That’s the way it is.“ This observation was seconded by Mac Miller, who revealed, “I had a drug problem, you know, for a long time. It wasn’t just in music but I definitely was going through a drug problem. And I think it was more on my state of mind. I was pretty depressed – as everyone.“ (Interview with Larry King, 2017) 

As you probably know, Mac Miller died this year, September 7, from a suspected overdose at the age of 26. A couple of months earlier, Ariana Grande, his girlfriend of two years, had broken up with him, citing his substance abuse as a main reason for her decision to split. Many blamed Grande for Miller’s death, which of course is ultimate BS. As she countered herself when previously blamed for his DUI incident in May, “I am not a babysitter or a mother and no woman should feel that they need to be. I have cared for him and tried to support his sobriety & prayed for his balance for years (and always will of course) but shaming/blaming women for a man’s inability to keep his shit together is a very major problem. [L]et’s please stop doing that.“ 

And I mean, she’s right. Everyone’s responsible for themselves and their own decisions in life. She wasn’t the one who mixed him his purple drank and fed it to him in a bottle while singing him to sleep. The reality was: 

It started by me just sitting inside all day. And then it’s like – then you get bored. Then you’re like, well I could just be high, and I could have a whole adventure in this room. […] At one point weed didn’t relax me from everything. It made me more paranoid about all the shit happening. Right, so like, I needed to get a drug that was a little more numbing, if you will, and less like in your head. So yeah, that’s, I think, that’s what really sparked me doing all the drugs. It’s because I hate being sober, I wanted a drug to do. (Mac Miller, FADER documentary, 2016). 

Your life, your choices.

Leo Gura, a life coach who shares his wisdom on Youtube, defines the “fear of emptiness“ as the root cause of every addiction. He clarifies that this fear comes up when you sit alone in an empty room with nothing to do. This is when you start looking for distractions and escapes which are materializing as addictions, much like reflected in Mac Miller’s account.

Sitting alone in an empty room. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? The problem really is that we can’t be with ourselves anymore without external (over-)stimulation. Silence is scary. It gives us room for questions, and the answers will resonate. But more often than not the truth is not made of cotton candy and it does not even taste sweet. In fact, for most people it’s hard to swallow. The truth could be that your life is hollow, your inner child is still aching for love and acceptance, or that you don’t really know who you are. That’s pretty fucking scary. Like who ARE you if you subtract what you DO? In other words: Who are you if you’re alone in an empty room doing nothing? 

Hmm. 

For Gura, the cure for every addiction is to mindfully sit in this empty room and surrender to the “purifying fire of emptiness“, which will eventually “burn out all your inner demons“. In other words, it means allowing all those cravings and desires (for sex, love, socialization, money, food, fun, etc. ) to come up without acting upon them, sitting through the psychosomatic reaction which will ensue and facing the emotions which lie underneath all those cravings and desires. Letting go. Being. 

When you think how rarely we get the chance to enjoy literal silence, you might as well start to consider it a luxury good. I don’t know about you, but I hate having (crappy) music imposed on me in every supermarket, clothing store or shopping mall I go. If you pay attention to how many external stimulations are forced upon you in a day, you start to believe that 1984 is more than just the title of a book… The absurdity of it all is that nowadays people pay a shitload of money to go on “silent retreats“, typically in monasteries (in German: Schweigeklöster), where they are not allowed to talk or use their mobile phones, and most of the time just sit still and do nothing. I first heard about this trending holiday option a couple of years ago when one my former classmates told me she had been in a Schweigekloster for two weeks. She confessed that at first it was really hard for her not to talk (well, I can imagine…) and that she wanted to break off her stay halfway through the first week, but then she had a prolonged “psychological talk“ with a monk, who persuaded her to stay. She said that it was really detoxing in every possible way and that she realized how sad she had been. Apparently she had cried a lot in these two weeks, and felt very relieved afterwards. I remember that I had two immediate reactions to her story. First: “So you didn’t talk for 2 weeks!??!“ And second: “Why would you pay for something you might as well do at home?“ But what do I know… 

Anyways, 2018 is coming to its close. It’s been quite a journey for me. New year’s resolutions? Facing my fears. All of them. Head-on. Not hiding behind anyone or anything. No escaping. Getting real-er every day. Creating. Loving. 

So just a little taste and you know she got you

Can you hide away, can you hide away

Sound of silence as they all just watch you

I kinda find it strange

How the times have changed

But I wish, we could go and be free, once

Baby, you and me

We could change the world forever

And never come back again

Let’s leave it all in the rear-view

You don’t have to cry

You don’t have to cry

(Mac Miller, Objects in the Mirror)