They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab But I Said No, No, No

Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Your Aunt Becky

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I made a big fuss a couple of months ago after I started getting lumped in with the Mothers Who Drink about how I am not an alcoholic. It’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever written so if you haven’t read it, you should.

Anyway, it wasn’t a joke. I’m not an alcoholic.

I’ve always been fearful of becoming a pill-popper, though, so when I got a standing prescription for Vicodin for my anniversary (from a real doctor! Not, like The Internet!) for my my grains I was a little afraid I’d pass out in a pool of my own drool after having a little too much medicated fun.

I haven’t.

Turns out, I’m not a pill-popper either.

I’m not a smoker, I don’t drink coffee, I don’t hoard cats, kids, dogs or Precious Moments figurines (shudder, shudder).

But I am an addict. I know that now.

(don’t worry, I’m not rehashing a boring plot of a show because that’s nearly as dull as a dream sequence and I don’t do that either. Bear with me now.)

I watched an episode of House, MD where the lead character looks frantically for something to replace his Vicodin habit with and he ultimately decides on cooking. He spends all day and night making spaghetti sauce, eschewing sleep to make the sauce until he perfects it.

I watched that scene, my mouth agape (likely a thin filament of drool hanging merrily down) tears coursing down my cheeks with my hands around my Orchid’s for Dummies book, after I put down my iPhone where I’d been looking up the precise humidity level my particular species of orchid likes and spec-ing out the dimensions for a light box so that during the semi-dark Midwestern winters, my flowers get the exact precise amount of light they’ll need.

I slowly swiveled my head, my eyes as wide as saucers to The Daver who looked back at me and I said crying, choking a little, “Oh my God, I didn’t know, why didn’t you tell me?”

He looked back at me, slightly bemused and said, “Baby, I thought you knew.”

No, no I didn’t know.

In hindsight, though, it all makes sense.

I get asked a lot, sometimes kindly, sometimes in awe, sometimes in a oh-my-god-you’re-an-asshole sort of way, how I can write in my blog most days of the week and well, now you have your answer, my friends: that’s how. I’m an addict. I’m compulsive.

And I’ve channeled any of the energy I might have put into less wholesome activities and put it somewhere wholesome. Creating instead of destroying.

It gives me a sense of accomplishment to come here and peck out an entry for you that writing an essay for myself wouldn’t give me. You give me feedback that the blank Open Office document won’t and I can interact with you and it’s a hell of a lot more satisfying than washing the floor.

Maybe I need to get addicted to housework. I’d get laid more.

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