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Red Bull Blues

The author learns once again that when he puts one addiction down, he picks up another.

I realized something awhile back. I guess I already knew, but this just made it crystal clear for me.

I was at the airport, en route to Santa Clara, California. There was no Starbucks nearby. My other choices were Dunkin’ Donuts or coffee served at a breakfast place across the way.

Certain that both choices would fall far short of the kick I get from Starbucks, Peets or one of the other high-grade coffee providers, I went with a can of Red Bull.

My latest addiction.

I never thought I would start drinking this stuff. But here’s how it happened:

During the 2010 RSA security conference, I was feeling a bit edgy because living through a conference without enjoying all the free booze was something I was still adjusting to, even though I’ve been sober and abstinent from binge eating for quite some time. On the show floor, the Threatpost “clubhouse” had a fridge stalked with free soft drinks, including Red Bull.

Free caffeine in a can. And there’s a sugar-free version, which helps, since I gave up flour and sugar for the binge eating problem.

Drinking it removed the edge, and having a can in my hand instead of a coffee cup somehow made it easier to exist around all the people with beer, wine and stronger cocktails in their hands.

Game over.

Since then, I’ve been drinking at least one every afternoon or evening. Erin said she was getting annoyed finding random empty Red Bull cans around the house and in my car.

The funny thing is, she used to express it the same way when she found evidence of an eating binge under the car seats. Guilt bags, she called them.

Now they’re empty Red Bull cans.

And thus we have another example of what I call playing your addictions like a piano. You pound on one key until it breaks into pieces. You realize it was stupid to do that and you stop it. Then you do the same thing to another key further down the board. The process repeats until you’ve smashed every key on the piano.

Then you find another piano and repeat the process.  It’s a kind of purgatory addicts live in.

Am I angry about picking up an addiction to Red Bull?

A little.

It pisses me off that I can’t picture myself without SOMETHING in my hand to somehow fill the soul hole. Over time that hole has gotten a lot smaller, allowing me to put down the most destructive addictions. But there’s just enough of a chasm left that other, smaller addictions come into play.

Here’s what I’m going to do about it:

NOTHING.

For now, anyway.

That’s because I have to focus on Priority-One of my recovery program, which is to stay away from the addictions that crushed me and made my life unmanageable.

Those addictions were binge eating and, as a smaller byproduct, wine.

If the caffeine helps me stay away from those things and allows me to keep my life manageable, that’s how it must be.

Update: Last week I was in San Francisco again for RSA Conference 2012. Red Bull was available everywhere I went. Much of the time I drank it from a glass, which threw people for a loop. A lot of folks never see the stuff out of the can, and are surprised to see that it looks like lightly-carbonated whiskey or beer.

I was the sober man in rooms packed with the pleasantly buzzed. But, holding my glass of Red Bull, I really felt like part of the crowd.

Fucked up, I know. But there it is.

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An OCD Diaries Primer

A collection of posts that form the back story of this blog.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:19n9s9SfnLtwPEODqk8KCT]

The Long History of OCD

An OCD Christmas. The first entry, where I give an overview of how I got to crazy and found my way to sane.

The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill. How the drug Prednisone brought me to the brink, and how Prozac was part of my salvation.

The Crazy-Ass Guy in the Newsroom. Think you have troubles at work? You should see what people who worked with me went through.

The Freak and the Redhead: A Love Story. About the wife who saved my life in many ways.

Snowpocalypse and the Fear of Loss. The author remembers a time when fear of loss would cripple his mental capacities, and explains how he got over it — mostly.

The Ego OCD Built. The author admits to having an ego that sometimes swells beyond acceptable levels and that OCD is fuel for the fire. Go ahead. Laugh at him.

Fear Factor. The author describes years of living in a cell built by fear, how he broke free and why there’s no turning back.

Prozac Winter. The author discovers that winter makes his depression worse and that there’s a purely scientific explanation — and solution.

Have Fun with Your Therapist. Mental-illness sufferers often avoid therapists because the stigma around these “shrinks” is as thick as that of the disease. The author is here to explain why you shouldn’t fear them.

The Engine. To really understand how mental illness happens, let’s compare the brain to a machine.

 

Rest Redefined. The author finds that he gets the most relaxation from the things he once feared the most.

Outing Myself. The author on why he chose to “out” himself despite what other people might think.

Why Being a People Pleaser is Dumb. The author used to try very hard to please everybody and was hurt badly in the process. Here’s how he broke free and kept his soul intact.

The Addiction and the Damage Done

The Most Uncool Addiction. In this installment, the author opens up about the binge-eating disorder he tried to hide for years — and how he managed to bring it under control.

Edge of a Relapse. The author comes dangerously close to a relapse, but lives to fight another day.

The 12 Steps of Christmas. The author reviews the 12 Steps of Recovery and takes a personal inventory.

How to Play Your Addictions Like a Piano. The author admits that when an obsessive-compulsive person puts down the addiction that’s most self-destructive, a few smaller addictions rise up to fill the void. But what happens when the money runs out?

Regulating Addictive Food: A Lesson in Futility. As an obsessive-compulsive binge eater, the author feels it’s only proper that he weigh in on the notion that regulating junk food might help. Here’s why the answer is probably not.

The Liar’s Disease. The author reveals an uncomfortable truth about addicts like himself: We tend to have trouble telling the truth.

Portable Recovery. Though addiction will follow the junkie anywhere in the world, the author has discovered that recovery is just as portable.

Revere (Experiences with Addiction, Depression and Loss During The Younger Years)

Bridge Rats and Schoolyard Bullies. The author reviews the imperfections of childhood relationships in search of all his OCD triggers. Along the way, old bullies become friends and he realizes he was pretty damn stupid back then.

Lost Brothers. How the death of an older brother shaped the Hell that arrived later.

Marley and Me. The author describes the second older brother whose death hit harder than that of the first.

The Third Brother. Remembering Peter Sugarman, another adopted brother who died too early — but not before teaching the author some important lessons about life.

Revere Revisited.

Lessons from Dad. The author has learned some surprising lessons from Dad on how to control one’s mental demons.

The Basement. A photo from the old days in Revere spark some vivid flashbacks.

Addicted to Feeling Good. To kick off Lent, the author reflects on some of his dumber quests to feel good.

The lasting Impact of Crohn’s Disease. The author has lived most of his life with Crohn’s Disease and has developed a few quirks as a result.

The Tire and the Footlocker. The author opens up an old footlocker under the stairs and finds himself back in that old Revere basement.

Child of  Metal

How Metal Saved Me. Why Heavy Metal music became a critical OCD coping tool.

Insanity to Recovery in 8 Songs or Less. The author shares some videos that together make a bitchin’ soundtrack for those who wrestle with mental illness and addiction. The first four cover the darkness. The next four cover the light.

Rockit Records Revisited. The author has mentioned Metal music as one of his most important coping tools for OCD and related disorders. Here’s a look at the year he got one of the best therapy sessions ever, simply by working in a cramped little record store.

Metal to Stick in Your Mental Microwave.

Man of God

The Better Angels of My Nature. Why I let Christ in my life.

The Rat in the Church Pew. The author has written much about his Faith as a key to overcoming mental illness. But as this post illustrates, he still has a long way to go in his spiritual development.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely. The author goes to Church and comes away with a strange feeling.

Running from Sin, Running With Scissors. The author writes an open letter to the RCIA Class of 2010 about Faith as a journey, not a destination. He warns that addiction, rage and other bad behavior won’t disappear the second water is dropped over their heads.

Forgiveness is a Bitch. Seeking and giving forgiveness is essential for someone in recovery. But it’s often seen as a green light for more abuse.

Pain in the Lent. The author gives a progress report on the Lenten sacrifices. It aint pretty.


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Willie Wonka and the Cocaine Factory

The author watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for the first time since cleaning up from a binge eating disorder. What a trip.

Yesterday the rain was coming down sideways, so the Brenner clan decided to put in a DVD of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It’s still a great movie, but since my main troubles with addictive behavior stem from flour and sugar, which I gave up on Oct. 1, 2008, watching it this time was kind of weird.

Weird because I didn’t sneak out of the house afterward to buy $20 worth of candy to stuff down my throat on the 3-minute drive from the gas station back to the house. I just went to fill the cars with gas and buy a loaf of bread and some Red Bull.

The scene in the film which best fits a mind unhinged is where they are traveling the chocolate river on a boat:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6j25yIPUlE&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Now, for a better picture of my own insanity back in the day, the Marylin Manson rendition of this little number is more appropriate:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3uZHhvt_sw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Looking at the characters in the movie really reminded me of the multiple personalities I can have as an addict. Those kids were punks as individuals and got what they deserved.

Now, for a little fun, let’s squish them all into one, multi-personality monster and see what we get. By the time we finish, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what one person is like when their addictions run wild.

Charlie Bucket: This is the good side of the soul, the part that wants to be honest and do the right thing. For me, this side won out in the end — well, for now, at least — but being the quiet, well-behaved kid, he’s always in danger of being pushed to the back of the line by these wretched children:

Violet Beauregarde: The third kid to find one of Wonka‘s elusive Golden Tickets, this little scamp is a compulsive gum chewer. That compulsion gets the better of her and she blows up into a giant blueberry. Been there, done that.

Augustus Gloop: The Deadly Sin of Gluttony personified, this poor kid is encouraged to eat like a slob by his parents, who are just as devoted to their own binging habits. Hell, his old man eats the top of a microphone and doesn’t seem to notice. The kid takes it too far by shoving his bloated face in Wonka’s chocolate river.

Mike Teavee: I know this kid. He lives for TV, especially the violent programs where a lot of bullets are flying. His parents sit there and let him indulge. Now blend him with Augustus and Violet and you get a kid who sits in front of the tube shoving all kinds of junk down his throat.

Veruca Salt: This kid is so selfish and mean that you want to spill tears of joy when she goes down the garbage chute with the rest of the rotten eggs. I like to think of her as the glue that holds the rest of the beast together. The other kids make up the guts of the poor soul who is owned by his or her addictions. Veruca is the skin.

What makes the movie so great is that Charlie comes out on top. It’s a dream of most people to have the good triumph over evil.

In this movie it does.

In my own life, it has.

But I have to be on guard at all times because, contrary to what Wonka says at the end of the movie, the guy who gets everything he wants DOES NOT live happily ever after.

You’re always seconds away from letting Veruca or Violet back out.

The good news is that if you are truly serious about being well, there’s no shortage of loving souls who will stick with you and keep you on the path to Heaven.

You might loop back through Hell a few times along the way, but you’ll end up in the better place if you keep working at it.

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The Long Road Through Self-Hatred

The author has learned that it’s damn hard to like yourself at the beginning of sobriety and abstinence. The feeling will pass. Eventually.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/TP06kxW_M3I

A friend and fellow 12-Stepper just hit a major milestone in her recovery: 90 days of abstinence. In the world of compulsive overeating, think of this as 90 days of back-to-back sobriety.

She worked hard for this and has every reason to be bursting with joy. Yet she’s uneasy.

She doesn’t feel quite right in her skin.

She’s going through something a lot of us go through when we kick our addictions. To call it self hatred might be a stretch. I don’t think she dislikes herself. But now that her mind is clear of the intoxicating haze, she sees things about herself that she doesn’t like. She’s suddenly aware for the first time that she has some flaws that are tough to look at in the mirror.

For a lot of people, it can become a matter of self hatred. It certainly did for me.

Truth be told, I disliked myself way before I cleaned up.

I hated how I looked. I thought I was the crappiest son/sibling/friend on the face of the Earth. Certain relatives would tell me just that, and I believed them. There’s no question that I was a lousy friend when my best friend, Sean Marley, was sinking into depression and I was too worried about my career to notice.

That’s WHY I gave in to my addictions.

Even though my mental illness included a lot of fear and anxiety over getting sick or dying, I did a pretty good job of trying to kill myself. Not in a suicidal way. Not deliberately. But in the end, addiction is a compulsion — an ache — to repeat dangerous behavior even though you know what the likely consequences are.

It’s the weirdest irony there is.

But when you start to fight your demon head-on, you do become super-aware of your own vulnerabilities. For awhile, I became paralyzed by mine. Then I figured out how to get beyond it. But it took a lot of dirty work.

In his book, “Symptoms of Withdrawal,” Christopher Kennedy Lawford writes that after he kicked drugs in 1986, it still took him awhile to actually become a good person.

Those around him weren’t always happy he was sober, especially since that meant he couldn’t make the cocktails at family gatherings like he used to.

He writes about having to learn how to be a decent human being and be clean at the same time. You would think it’s easy. But it’s not.

In the book, Lawford writes:

“There is another great fiction of recovery — that is, once you stop using your life becomes a bed of roses. Anybody who has stayed sober for any length of time knows that living sober is about learning to live life on life’s terms and a good part of life is painful. When I got sober someone said to me that I would get to realize all my greatest fears in sobriety … You know what? He was right, and it’s not half as bad as I imagined.”

The man speaks the truth. And, by the way, I highly recommend his book to anyone struggling with addiction as well as the clean up:

I had a lot to learn, and I’m still learning. Learning how to be completely honest with my wife and drop my emotional wall was hard. I’m much better at it than I used to be, but I still have a lot of work to do there.

Being more disciplined with money is something I need to be better at. After all, spending is also an addictive behavior.

The list goes on.

But while the work goes on — and will continue to go on — there’s an important point to be made.

Somewhere along the way, I learned to like myself.

Today, I can honestly say I’m happy with the man I’ve become, even if I’m still pretty damn far from perfect.

But then perfect people don’t exist. If they did, they’d be pretty boring.

self hatred II by ~xiaoD
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The Final Addiction

The author on why he will shamelessly revel in his last addiction until he can’t anymore.

Mood music for this post: “Dr. Feelgood” by Motley Crue:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU1zliOPCHo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Addiction has led to many shameful moments in my life:

Binging on a $35 bag of McDonald’s junk between work and home and walking through the door in a zombie-like state, feeling like the lowest of the low.

Realizing that I HAD to have a glass of wine at the end of the day or, better yet, all afternoon on a Sunday, the glass filled to the brim.

Dreaming up all kinds of ways to hide the money I was spending on both. In other words, lying to everyone about what I was up to — including myself. [More on that in The Liar’s Disease]

That was the real self-destructive stuff. I kicked the first habit by cutting all flour and sugar from my diet and putting all my food on a little scale. The second one was easier to kick, because even at its worst, that addiction was far less damaging than the flour-sugar kind.

I’m both sober (from alcohol) and abstinent (from compulsive overeating) and I work the 12 Steps of Recovery.

I still enjoy the occasional cigar, though I’m off them for the duration of Lent.

But there is still one hefty addiction on my shoulders. And you know what? I have no desire to kick it.

Caffeine.

I drink it all day, mostly in coffee form. I like it strong and bitter, and if there are grounds spinning in a circle at the surface, I’m fine with that. Even when I put cream in, it still looks black to the naked eye. I love it so.

My favorite routine is to get up at 4 a.m., brew a cup and let it seep into my bloodstream as I look out the living room window, sitting in my favorite chair, watching the sun come up. By 9 a.m., I’m on the second cup.

I prefer Starbucks, though Peets and Panera brew some good stuff as well.

On some of my work-at-home days, I can be found in the Starbucks up the street, using the place as my own caffeinated office.

When traveling, one of the first things I do is find where the coffee is at. By the way, there are a lot of great coffee shops in Washington D.C.

Why the obsession with coffee? Well, the easy answer is that I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and chances are I’m always going to latch onto something. The trick is to latch onto the things that are most harmless to me, my family and everyone else. Caffeine is one of those things.  Sure, there’s the risk that I’ll overdo it and end up in an emergency room with my heart trying to rip its way out of my chest.

When I was around 20, I thought a great way to lose weight was to drink as many cups of black coffee as I could squeeze into a day. It was good for weight loss, but that kind of weight loss is only temporary. And breathing into a paper bag to calm down at the end of the day got old fast.

What works for me now is to sip slowly. Guzzling is the path to heart palpitations, so I avoid that.

Sometimes, when I’m on the road, I switch over to Red Bull in the afternoon. I’m not as big a fan of the stuff, but it helps to dull the edge I get from seeing all the free booze and food flowing around me.

Yes, I’m letting something control me. Yes, I’ll probably have to stop someday. But not today.

Of all the addictions I have, it remains the least harmful. And if it keeps me away from the stuff that really pushes my life into a downward spiral, so be it.

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Portable Recovery

Though addiction will follow the junkie anywhere in the world, the author has discovered that recovery is just as portable.

Mood Music for this post: “Turn the Page” — the Metallica version:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOibtqWo6z4&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I’ve seen interview after interview where musicians describe their drug habits and how being on the road made them so much worse.

One of the best examples was Motley Crue on the Girls Girls Girls tour, where the four band members’ addictions were well past the point of manageability — not that an addiction is ever really manageable. That was the tour where Nikki Sixx kept a diary chronicling his increasing heroin use.

In fact, sit in front of the TV and watch a “Behind the Music” marathon and you’ll see most bands tell a similar story.

It’s a similar tale for any businessman who nurses an addiction while doing a lot of travel. Every city is flowing with whatever material feeds one’s vice, whether it’s drugs, alcohol or, in my case, binge eating.

I can tell you from experience that it’s true. During my travels to San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Las Vegas and points in between, the opportunity to binge on free junk and alcohol is limitless.

But here’s what I’ve also learned: You can take your recovery everywhere, too.

In all of the cities I mentioned above, I’ve been able to hold firmly to my 12-Step program and related plan of eating. I know what I can eat, how much, and which ingredients are essentially my cocaine (flour and sugar).

There are 12-Step meetings in every city and town, whether it’s OA or AA, and there are phone meetings available around the clock.

And, if you’re like me, you’ve told enough people about your challenges that they’ll watch out for you. That was definitely the case for me in San Francisco last week.

It really comes down to what you want. If you want your junk, you’ll always be resourceful enough to find it.

If you want recovery, same deal.

I’ve found it also helps to read blogs from others in recovery when I’m on the road. One of my recent discoveries is a great blog called “Conquering Crazy” by Greg Dungan. Like my OCD Diaries, Greg’s blog is a recent start-up. He focuses like a laser beam on the core craziness as he experiences it. It reads more like an actual day-by-day diary, whereas mine is more a collection of longer narratives with a lot of focus on the byproducts of my affliction.

Like me, music is important to him, and he is also a seeker who is trying to find the core of his spirituality. I especially love his first entry, “OK, So I’m Crazy.” Here’s an excerpt:

“I have exhibited symptoms of OCD for as long as I can remember. Recently, these symptoms have intensified. What used to be the “things that make me unique” have become the “things that make me crazy”. This blog is about my struggle with this demon. This is where I will record my day to day thoughts and struggles – my defeats and my victories. I have two choices at this point in my life – roll over and die or fight my way out. I’ve never been one for rolling over and I’m not about to start now.

“You’re welcome to walk this valley with me. If you are living with OCD or if someone you love is, take heart. There are brighter days somewhere, and we will find them together.”

Brighter days ahead? You bet your ass there are.

I’ve experienced it. I’ve been to the valley and the mountaintop.

I started blogging about it after I had been on the journey for a few years. Greg is blogging his journey from the start. That’s courage.

And like addiction, depression, Faith and recovery, courage is portable, too.

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Sober in San Francisco (Aint Easy)

The author has been sober and on a rigid eating plan to control his addictions for some time. But nothing puts him to the test quite like time on the road.

Mood music for this post: “Saints of Los Angeles” by Motley Crue —

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XFMVHRZztM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Here’s the thing with security conferences (and conferences in general): a ton of food is lying around and booze seems to ooze from every building.

That used to suit me just fine when I was a binge eater and wine guzzler. It offered a welcome respite from the pressure I was always putting on myself to succeed at these events. But then that’s what addicts do — pollute themselves to kill the pressure or the pain.

Luckily, I don’t feel that kind of pressure anymore. But the temptations can run hot when I’m on the road.

So here I am in San Francisco for the RSA conference and Security B-Sides events. I’m at a lot of events that involve drinking and instead of wine I’m sucking down club sodas and Red Bull. And, truth be told, I still have trouble feeling at ease in the crowd without the wine buzzing beneath the skin of my forehead.

But here’s the good news, kids: When you’re open about your recovery, people look out for you.

This morning, at the B-Sides event, one of my newer security friends warned me that the taco truck on the street below might not have food I can eat, and suggested a place around the corner that would be a better option. He knew about my limits from reading this blog.

Later, at the evening parties, people pointed me toward the non-alcoholic beverages.

I’ve been reminded again and again on this trip that there are some kind souls out there. Because I’ve opened up to them, they’ve accepted me for who I am without reservation.

It’s true that anonymity is a critical tool for those of us in recovery. Everything said at an OA or AA meeting stays there. One must never out another person.

But I chose to out myself, partly because it’s easier for me to stick with recovery when I don’t have to make up strange excuses for why I can’t eat at a certain place or have a glass of alcohol.

A lot of addicts worry about being scorned and seen as a freak by those around them if they reveal too much. To a certain extent, it’s a valid concern. To be sure, there are plenty of shitheads out there.

But my experience is that those people are a very small minority.  Since just about everyone has a few skeletons in the closet, they can identify. And that seems to make everything better.

As a dear friend of mine likes to say, if you can’t get rid of the skeletons in your closet, might as well make them dance.

So to those of you looking out for me while I’m here, I thank you.

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The Angry Years

The author can’t say his temper was a direct result of OCD, depression and addictive behavior. But dealing with those things did make it go away. Mostly.

I had one hell of a temper when I was younger. To call it a byproduct of OCD, depression and addiction would be a stretch, because I think the temper would have been there even without the mental illness.

Some of the more colorful examples of my temper:

— Hurling a fork or steak knife at my brother in a restaurant on New Years Eve 1979 because he made a joke I didn’t like. The more dramatic among my family members say it was a steak knife, though I’m pretty sure it was a fork.

— Lighting things on fire out of anger, including a collection of Star Wars action figures that would probably be worth a fortune today. I would pretend they were kids in school who were bullying me. Never mind that I bullied as much as I got bullied.

–Throwing rocks through windows, especially the condominium building that was built behind my house in the late 1980s.

–Yelling “mood swing!” before throwing things around the room at parties in my basement. It came off as comical, as I intended, and nobody got hurt. But there was definitely an underlying anger to it. I was acting out.

— Road rage. Tons of it. I was a very angry driver. I would tailgate. I would speed. In the winters I would intentionally spin out my putrid-green 1983 Ford LTD station wagon in parking lots during snowstorms. While in college, I nearly hit another car and flipped off the other driver while my future in-laws sat in the back. Traffic jams would infuriate me. Getting lost would fill me with fear and, in turn, more anger.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

There were a lot of legitimate causes of rage for me. The drug I took for Chron’s Disease had a lot of nasty side effects, including violent mood swings. A brother and two close friends dying — one by suicide — gave me a lot of anger. Being stuck in the middle of turf wars and working late nights while at The Eagle-Tribune certainly made me a a walking ball of fire.

I’m also sure the fear and anxiety that came with my OCD contributed to more anger.

But here’s the good news: I don’t feel that anger anymore.

Sure, there are days where I’m feeling pissed off and some profanity might drip from my lips. And yes, there are days where I might raise my voice over something the kids did.

But I no longer punch walls (I never hit people; just walls). I no longer throw things. I no longer set toys ablaze. And I’m a much calmer driver. In fact, I actually enjoy the quiet time I get from long drives. Even the profanity isn’t close to what it used to be, which is no small achievement for a guy from Revere.

The reasons are pretty simple. The coping tools I developed to manage the OCD also made for some excellent anger management. Losing the fear and anxiety in turn made me less angry. And my religious conversion was a huge force for calming my soul.

Finally, I thank God for the metal music. It’s great therapy for when I’m having a frustrating day. And when I was a kid, it was an outlet for my anger that almost certainly kept me from acting on much darker impulses.

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Another Reason Addiction-Depression Stinks

I’ve mentioned before that one of the inspirations for this blog was a book called “The Heroin Diaries” by Nixxi Sixx, bass player and lyricist for Motley Crue. It’s a book of diary entries he wrote from late 1986 to late 1987, at the time the “Girls Girls Girls” album was recorded and the band toured the world to support it.

The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

At the time, he was in the tight clutches of a heroin addiction that would nearly kill him by December 1987. He was in fact dead for a few minutes, but a needle to the heart brought him back to life.

Last night I was flipping through the book again and noticed that Sixx often went days without showering. If he took a shower, it was a good day.

His girlfriend at the time, Vanity, is also described as being a mess all the time because she was too high to notice.

As a former manager for Motley Crue put it, when you’re strung out the first thing to fall by the side of the road is personal hygene.

From my experiences with depression and addictive behavior, I can tell you there’s a lot of truth to that statement.

In my early 20s, when I was binge eating in the basement of the house in Revere, I would go days wearing the same gym pants and bath robe without taking a shower. I was so depressed I just didn’t care.

Besides, it’s not like I was having much luck finding girlfriends when I was clean.

My friends were often just as bad, especially Sean Marley, who at the time was descending into his own little hell and was running sleep-deprivation experiments on himself.

The hang-ups weren’t unique. I’d obsess about finding a girlfriend, which I couldn’t do because I was trying too hard. I was also going through my parental hatred phase. In hindsight I was an ungrateful slob. After all, they did let me have the entire basement apartment as a bedroom and let be throw parties at will.

Later on, after I met the love of my life and started getting serious about my journalism career, I made more of an effort at personal hygene. I showered more often, anyway.

But my weight was piling on as I dove deep into binge eating. Marley had recently died and I was doing an editing job that was killing me because of the hours I was putting in. I showered so I wouldn’t offend anyone, but I would wear the same clothes days at a time. I figured if I wore the same pants every day nobody would notice because I’d change the shirts. I’m sure some people noticed.

The good news is that I got over this sort of behavior as I went to work on the root causes of my OCD and related addictions.

So don’t worry. I’ve had my shower and a fresh change of clothes.

But if you’re standing next to someone in the elevator and they just happen to reek, go easy on them. They’re probably just going through a rough time.

With any luck, it’ll pass.

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Addicted to Feeling Good: A Love-Hate Story

Every now and then, it’s useful to look back at who I used to be so I can appreciate who I am today.

I do it partly to laugh at how — in many ways, despite the progress I’ve made — I can still be as stupid in adulthood as I was 20-plus years ago.

As I write this we’re halfway through Lent — a time to sacrifice habits you love — or, in my case, habits you’re addicted to.

Giving something up always brings back acute memories of some of the dumber things I’ve done in the compulsive-obsessive drive to feel good.

Indulge me as I take inventory.

Mood music:

Age 18: I’m living off 8 cups of black coffee and a mug of Raisin Bran a day in an attempt to be rock-star thin. I discovered an after dinner drink — Haffenreffer Lager Beer. There were little puzzles on the underside of the bottle caps, and your ability to solve them would steadily decline — or increase — depending on how drunk you were. Being addicted to instant gratification, I’d suck down three bottles in quick succession so I could immediately enjoy feeling like I had just absorbed half a keg of lighter beer.

Age 21: I’m pacing up and down the driveway of the old Revere house in a blue-green polka-dotted bathrobe I used to own. I’m freaking out because I’ve just consumed two beers and an entire stick of marijuana by myself in the concrete storage room beneath the front patio.

The fellow who gave it to me was about 500 pounds and wore a black trenchcoat, even during the summer. He died Valentine’s Day 2009 of a heart attack. I lost touch with him as I became focused on career and learned after his death that he had led an admirable life of aiding the mentally disabled. Anyway, I was freaking out because, in the midst of lying on my bed enjoying the high, I suddenly got the idea that I just might have a heart attack. That’s one of my earlier memories of an anxiety attack.

We partied a lot in that basement. It was the scene of many impressive and entertaining mood swings.

I called my friend Danny Waters and asked him to come over. He did, and found me pacing up and down the driveway in my bathrobe. He took me down the street to Kelly’s Roast Beef and got me an order of chicken fingers to munch away the anxiety. Kelly’s was always a favorite place for me to binge eat away my troubles. It was as good as any drug or liquor store.

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Age 29: I drop 100 pounds of fat I packed on while binge-eating my way through the middle 1990s. I’m inspired by the quadruple bypass surgery my father has recently had. I lose the weight by pigging out Thursday through Saturday and starving myself Sunday through Wednesday. The binge eating continues through the next few years but I manage to keep the weight down, fooling most people.

Age 33: Around this time, the binge eating gets a new playmate in the form of red wine, which I decide I can’t live without.

Age 39: No more binge eating — not today, anyway. No wine. I work the 12-step program of recovery.

Age 44: I’ve had my slips along the way, but I continue working to give up my bad habits for good.