Recovering addicts probably suffered a lot when they were they weren't drinking, doing drugs, shopping, having sex, eating sugar, or doing whatever it was that they used to be  addicted to. (Then again, who isn't suffering when they're not drinking, doing drugs, shopping, having sex and/or eating?)

But, now that they're recovered from their addictions, they have an easy pass, at least when comes to their writing careers. For example, a former addict got a Lives column published in the New York Times Magazine  earlier this summer. 

The column begins with the recovering alcoholic letting us know that he checked himself into rehab.

"Last year, unable to find work in the U.S., I came to Nicaragua to stay with a relative. Shortly thereafter I started drinking so much that I checked myself into rehab here for eight weeks."

His column then describes a time that he got tricked into lending a coconut salesman money. After that embarrassing episode, he goes on to buy the coconut salesman a bible.    I don't feel like explaining the context any further than that.  Just know that after the recovering alcoholic lent the coconut salesman money, the salesman kept asking for more, and he never repainted his coconut cart with the money that he got, like he said he would.

When I read this column, I felt angry and jealous.

Why did he get to be published in the New York Times Magazine?

If I gave someone money, never got paid back,  then wrote an article about it, people would be like, "What a dumbass ho. My woman would never give her money away to a coconut man." 

But because it was a recovering alcoholic who gave away his money, his story is now special enough to be in the New York Times magazine. His coconut-related interactions are fraught with meaning. He didn't overpay the coconut salesman because he's naive. He did it because he's learning to stop drinking. His loss of money is really just a metaphor for the manipulative things he did himself as an alcoholic.  When he overpays the coconut man, he is also paying for his past sins.

"Could he borrow it from me, since he was now so close to his goal? I told him I would think about it. In early sobriety, and especially in Nicaragua, hasty decisions are rarely advisable."

That same Sunday, a recovering heroin addict got published in the New York Times Sunday Styles section, for a Modern Love column.  To be fair, her column was actually very well-written and moving. 

But, the column does have one small cliche.  To borrow a phrase from the show "30 Rock," many recovering addicts do the "back door brag" in their work, where they discuss how horrible they used to be, only to then subtly boast about how they then got themselves clean;

"With my readmission to polite society, I had implicitly disowned the girl with the sweaty, crumpled cash in her pocket....And who cared if that girl, that huge part of me, was cast aside? She was a disaster of epic proportions anyway. Then again, that disaster had walked herself into detox, sweated through the sleepless nights, and somehow found a scrap of faith to cling to, even when there was no evidence to support such an act of hope."

The rest of the column is excellent, however, because the heroin is only one small part of the story.  

Other, not so-creative former drug addicts think that the drugs are the story.

A New York Times profile of  a new author begins "BILL CLEGG, literary agent and recovering crack user, is pacing the lobby of the Gansevoort Hotel, a BlackBerry glued to his ear. "

Notice how boring that sentence would be without the phrase "recovering crack user" squeezed in there. 

"He takes a seat in the hotel’s sunny rooftop bar and surveys the crowd," the Clegg profile continues. "'This is the first time I’ve been back,' he says, referring to the dark and rather sordid episode when he checked in under a fake name and binged on crack cocaine, male escorts and room-service vodka for nearly three weeks. Publishing friends likened it to the space shuttle explosion, because it seemed as if the entire New York literary world witnessed the meltdown. Editors whispered, writers gossiped and trade publications ran tidbits citing 'personal reasons' for his disappearance. Even now, few people in the industry are willing to talk about it on the record. But now it’s a memoir."

Of course it is.  And why wouldn't it be a memoir?  Let's  be honest here. Checking into a hotel under a fake name and bingeing on crack, prostitutes and vodka is a pretty awesome story to tell people later.  If you brag about those things while you're still doing them, you look creepy.  But discussing your sordid nights years after the fact strikes the perfect balance of  danger and safety. You are showing off your  disturbing, sexy past (because disturbing things are always sexier than  nice, normal things). But at the same time, you are distancing yourself from it, since you are now drug-free. 

Drug memoirs are also awesome you don't need to have anything original to say. You don't need to interview people.   The research part obviously doesn't take much effort.

Writing a substance addiction memoir essentially gives people with otherwise boring lives an excuse to write about themselves.   It's easier than fiction because don't need to invent (unless your James Frey), or write about non-existent people who aren't you.  

Really lazy addiction memoirists write about other people's addictions. Author Nic Sheff wrote a memoir about his addiction to meth.  His father, David Sheff, also wrote a memoir. It was about being the father of a meth addict.

Celebrities love to write former addiction memoirs to show how far they've come.  Kendra wants to you know that before she was an ordinary housewife, she battled meth and won. Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Gos has a drug addiction memoir, as does Russell Brand.

Did you do a lot of drugs when you were young? No, because you were probably in the nerd crowd.  Did survive really awesome drug parties to eventually become rich and famous? No?  So you spent your childhood being boring and sober, and yet you're still not rich? Loser. 

Sex addiction memoirists are the best, because, as Jezebel points out, they often confuse having a lot of lovers with being a true sex addict. 

This middle-aged woman wrote a memoir about being a sex addict, saying she had about 40 lovers. That's weak.  Warren Beatty, by comparison, is said to have had over 12,000 lovers (but I guess he's not a sex addict because he's a man?)

The problem with addiction memoirs is that, like disease stories, they are not really about people, but afflictions.  Yet, unlike disease stories, addiction memoirists want you to think that their addiction is not an affliction, but part of their personality. They want to be seen as dark, complicated, and, most importantly, badass.

Most people want to be badass.  

However, most people don't want to burden themselves with the work it takes to become a badass.  What could be better, then, than being a former badass? 

Former addicts are not the only type of former badasses. 

A former badass could also be the old yuppie who alludes to crazier, younger days, or the couple who talks about how slutty they both used to be, or that one sober kid at the college party who says he's "over" drinking because he did it so much in high school, or that guy on reality TV who says he used to get in crazy fist fights all the time, but he got mellowed out by anger management classes.

A particular favorite among the former badass crowd is former gang bangers.  Reporters love writing stories about former gang bangers.

The reporter can go home to his friends and brag, "I totally interviewed a former gangster!"  It sounds almost as cool as saying you interviewed a current gangster, but it has the added benefit of being a lot safer. 

Photo credit: Sherlock77