Addiction And The Deferring Of Time

Matthew Perry and more thoughts.

I guess one thing that struck me about some of the Matthew Perry reporting is that — and we can take some of this with a grain of salt — he apparently was “lonely” and “desperate for a family” near the end of his on-Earth days. You’ve potentially seen his final Instagram post, which was him in the very same hot tub he passed away in, overlooking Los Angeles but seemingly brooding and lonely. Addiction is a really powerful, really misunderstood thing. Here are a few thoughts on it all.

While there is a now-somewhat-politicized narrative around addiction “being a choice,” I personally have never thought that is the case. Addicts themselves make choices, absolutely. But I think a lot of addiction is genetic, and even if it’s not genetic, your brain shifts as you become an addict, and you get into this spiral that you can’t easily break, even if you’ve told yourself 10,000 times that you should break it. I’ve lived this dozens of times. I had entire swatches of 2019, 2021, and late 2022 where, if I looked at my microwave clock and it was noon and the weather was nice, I’d basically just drive to a bar with an outdoor area and start having a couple of beers and answering emails or whatever. That should also show you how pointless most white-collar work can be. I often saw guys at those bars in suits, doing the same thing.

So no, I don’t believe addicts “do it to themselves.”