Portrait of an Addict to Drug Memoirs With Terrible Titles (As a Young Man)

I just couldn’t stop myself. I knew that after the third or fourth page, I’d feel sickened, queasy. Paranoid even. Reading the drug memoir would make me not only feel rotten inside, but I’d keep looking over my shoulder as I huffed down each page, convinced that strangers were watching me, judging me, mocking me. They probably were. And it wasn’t just the terrible use of present tense. But I just couldn’t get enough. I’d done it before. I’ve missed first-class flights to Europe, and quit my job on a whim, and had sex with cab drivers and even hung out with black people just to read more $350,000-advance memoirs about white people smoking crack. Oh sure, I had $70,000 in the bank and a great-looking if one-dimensionally-portrayed boyfriend who really cared. You would have thought there’d be enough cash and flexibility in my life to support my drug memoir problem and still let me take part in normal life. But it wasn’t true. I was willing to throw it all away just to get naked in a hotel room at the Newark airport and admire myself shirtless while reading yet one more memoir about The Joys of Throwing It All Away In Pursuit of Crack.