Doubling Down on Stupid

You don’t need a degree in psychiatry to learn about the concepts of cognitive dissonance and system justification theory — just attend an AA meeting. You will be amazed by the sad, funny and creative ways that people are able to reconcile the irreconcilable. I have had countless opportunities to observe addicts performing mental gymnastics in order to rationalize their current lot in life and justify their optimism for the future. I’m the Simone Biles of mental gymnastics.

A graduate school assignment recently led me to sit in on a virtual AA meeting. I hadn’t been to an AA meeting since I stopped drinking in July of 2017. In the meeting, I observed people talking about their “war stories” as if the addict they were referring to was a completely foreign and different person to the one now talking to the group of floating heads that are sitting in a wall of zoom boxes, reminiscent of the Brady Bunch.

In AA rooms, “the bottom” can be described as the moment when the addict stops doubling down on stupid. They begin to realize that they’ve been acting irrationally and they start to accept that their entire belief system was wrong. They accept they were wrong in assuming others had it easy. They accept that the state of normalcy they were trying to achieve by drinking, was a facade. I personally assumed that everyone in my life walked around with a confidence that I could only obtain while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. And therefore, I needed to drink to achieve the feeling of normalcy, that I assumed everyone else was feeling.

I still beat myself up as I try making sense of the irrational, dangerous, and suicidal behavior that I, and other addicts, are working to leave in the past. I’ve become fascinated in learning about the moments that ultimately force addicts to look at their lives from a birds eye view. I’m fascinated in seeing people who have a new perspective on their own lives, and are now in the process of questioning all of their previously held beliefs. I’m fascinated in seeing those who are now practicing introspection because they are now capable of seeing how many times they “doubled down on stupid.” They are now able to stop making self-destructive decisions and work to repair their relationships with people and society at large.

As I roam the earth, well aware of my own stupidity in a beautifully freeing way, I now see sober people exhibiting cognitive dissonance all the time. I hope that by sharing my own tales of times where I was cognitively dissonant, I can help others who might be experiencing something similar.

One personal memory of my own stupidity that comes to mind is my “fraduation” from college (“fake” + “graduation = “fraduation”). In May of 2017, I had my entire family believe I graduated from college when in reality, I was 27 credits short and had only found a glitch in the graduation process that allowed me to walk in the university’s graduation procession. I’ve since graduated from the University of Texas for real (my mommy is in possession of my diploma), and time has lessened my embarrassment to a level that makes me comfortable to share the following:

I was once a little shit. The bedroom that I occupied in the apartment building located on the corner of 29th Street and Rio Grande Street in West Campus neighborhood in central Austin, during the spring semester of 2017, was filled with empty cans of Four Loko, empty bottles of tequila, empty vials of cocaine, empty bags of cocaine, cigarette buts, ash from cigarettes, and remnants of dozens of sandwiches from Fat Sal’s deli. I had three roommates and thousands of fruit flies. I found the listing on Craigslist.

The liquor store was located roughly 1000 feet from my apartment on 30th and Guadalupe. I rarely ventured further than the Circus Liquor Store during the whole semester. When the liquor store was closed on Sunday’s because of “Blue Laws,” I would go to the 7-Eleven and buy Four Loko. I would chug the Four Loko and, like a dog that never learns to stop eating its own shit, I would throw up a green colored mix of sugar, malt liquor, and undigested mozzarella sticks from the fat buffalo sandwich I ordered from Fat Sal’s the night before.

When I was vomiting, I allowed self-pity in. And in those moments it was hard to ignore all of the empty bottles and the empty vials and empty cans and the ash coated faux wood floors and cigarette buts and, of course, the fruit flies.

I had grown agoraphobic and stopped going to classes. And I was enrolled in 6 of them because after taking three semesters off over the past two years to attend inpatient and outpatient rehab programs, I had fallen behind the four-year graduation schedule. But, I was determined to put up a false front to my family with whom I was incapable of being honest. I was also putting up this false-front to the world. Nobody knew the extent to which I was struggling because I would tell extravagant lies about writing projects I was working on, and people I was dating and fun that I was having.

At some point in the semester, after I realized I was failing all of my classes, I began telling myself that a college degree was completely unnecessary because I would be a famous writer, or comedian, or both. Why not me? I believed all of that wholeheartedly. And I also was certain that my parents were assholes for working to restrict my access to drugs and alcohol. And their constant worry was exhausting me.

I was also determined to not disappoint my recently widowed grandmother. My not graduating would be a huge disappointment to a woman who worked 30 years as a NYC public school teacher, and spent her retirement traveling to various gyms and lacrosse fields across Nassau county, to support her grandson in his athletic endeavors. She also drove me to my therapy sessions as a teenager, always arriving to pick me up with a sweet and supportive attitude. She even volunteered to be a judge at the Lincoln-Douglas style debates I participated in during high school. At all costs, grandma needed to see me walk at graduation. Some of that pressure was derived externally, but I continued to double down on stupid, and deceive my family in ways that would make them think I was receiving a diploma.

While I sat in my bedroom — not going to class — I didn’t manage to write a single word the whole semester. I once had the courage to drunkenly show up at an open-mic. When I got on stage, I introduced myself, said something about being gay, and a wave of fear swept over me. I proceeded to walk offstage and ran right out of the bar. So I have no idea why I thought I would be paid to write or perform. My mom joked that I was seemingly waiting for someone to knock on my door and recognize my greatness.

I’m so embarrassed by my delusional thinking. But the people who love me, rarely remind me of the crazy things I did back then. That’s love.

To keep up with my addiction, I needed to create a complex net of lies that helped to justify my behavior to myself and to the people who loved me. I compulsively lied to my worried mom about grades I was getting in the classes I stopped attending and people I was seeing. I started to dream about my mom busting into my room unannounced, and saving me from myself. Which she would have done if I had allowed her.

My cluster headaches became a daily struggle. I fear sounding hyperbolic when I describe the pain of a cluster headache. But there is a reason that they have been dubbed “suicide headaches.” After suffering through an hour-long cluster headache, I would feel as though I deserved to get drunk. And I would.

My parents started to plan for my graduation, with a sad mix of skepticism and joy. Deep down, my mother knew that something was awry. But, I would consistently meet her skepticism with false or misleading emails from my advisor and the university that would lead her to believe that I was in fact graduating. So, my parents bought a lot of hotel rooms for my entire family, including my sister, grandma, my gay uncles, and our very close family friends, whom I would call my aunt and uncle. They were staying at the J.W. Marriott downtown.

My parents arrived in Austin, stunned to see how unhealthy I looked. I was bloated from drinking and had gained roughly 30 lbs. Both of my parents have completed triathlons and my father ran a marathon one year after receiving four rounds of chemotherapy, to treat his stage 3 testicular cancer.

As I sat in my cap and gown, fat and drunk on white wine, I looked right into the eyes of the televangelist Joel Osteen who was seated in the VIP section next to my parents. My “aunt” Donna was president of Turner Ad Sales and her colleague had hooked up my entire family with VIP tickets to my fake graduation. The whole thing was a sham. Their gay “sober” son, grandson, brother and nephew was walking in a ceremony reserved for students who had completed the 120 credit curriculum at the University of Texas at Austin — a feat that I had not achieved. And he was in the same class as the televangelist’s son, whom I assume would view my life as an abomination. Osteen happens to be incredibly handsome and years of Botox injections have permanently assigned his facial structure to resemble what one might call a smile. He looked so American and dapper and he would not stop smiling. I should’ve gone to NYU where people look like New Yorkers, and where they only smile when they’re happy. What the fuck was I doing in Texas?

I feel so badly for that kid sitting in that large basketball arena, disgusted with himself. Disgusted and so nervous about life. So afraid of trying and failing. So afraid of losing friends because he was gay. So afraid that he made a mistake by coming out. And the boy was incapable of seeing that, although he had some real shit he should be sad about, there were so many more reasons for him to be happy about the life in front of him.

People loved him. And some even thought that he was talented. They were well aware of the flaws that the little boy thought he was adept at hiding. And they still loved him in spite of those flaws.

But that little boy needed to stop lying. He needed to accept that he was wrong about so many things. And he needed to be met with warmth as he started to do the work to change. Because it’s really hard to see your own stupidity. It’s really hard to accept that your behavior has had a negative impact on others. It’s much easier to continue doubling down.