Last night while researching a piece I’m writing, I came across a Kaiser Permanente site devoted to addiction. It had all the standard stuff… a quiz to tell you if you’re drinking too much, and testimonials on how drugs or gambling or skeevy sex has ruined many lives. Then I clicked on the intervention tab and giggled at the thought of me trying to intervene in someone’s life:

Me: Look, don’t you think your drinking is out of hand? And maybe you’re doing just a lit-tle too much blow…
Addict: Who the fuck are you to tell me what I’m doing wrong? You can barely manage your own life.
Me: So true. (nodding as I look around the room at my co-interveners) Guys… he’s got a point.
Addict: I haven’t heard from you in, what? Three months? What are you even doing here?
Me: Someone said there’d be free food…

Finally I migrated over to the “advice” page, and this was the first thing I saw:

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
but, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

The first thing I did was laugh and show it to Jim. Then it sunk in… this was counting as… advice? No wonder there are so many addicts out there. Then I started cataloging all the trite crap I’d read:

don’t sweat the little things … today is the first day of the rest of your life … there’s always tomorrow (yeah, fuck you, little orphan annie) … nothing tastes as good as skinny feels … take it one day at a time… i’m ok/you’re ok

It’s like the whole clinical therapy approach has been bought out by Hallmark greeting card writers. Everything is reduced to sound bites or sing-songy rhymes. How’s anyone other that Dr. Phil supposed to get behind that? I mean, given the choice between hanging with the addicts or the saviors… I’ll take the addicts any day.

On this day..

• Metrosexual Sunday. - 2007