Lindsay Lohan Needs a Curfew

In the wee hours of the morning, Lindsay Lohan was arrested for assault at a New York City nightclub.

I know. Shocking, right?

This brings up an important piece of advice from me, your spirit animal Amy B.

You should be home by midnight. Nothing good happens after midnight.

Have you forgotten what you learned from Gremlins?

Are you too young to remember Gremlins?


If you forgot, here it is: Do not feed the creature after midnight. (In this case, the creature is you and all your totally bad ideas. No, going home with that guy is not a good idea. No, going to that club for more drinking is not a good idea. No, consuming a huge amount of breakfast foods at Waffle House is not a good idea. Go home.)

I have spent plenty of nights out past midnight and, oh yes, having plenty of fun, but you can be quite sure none of it was good for me. And the next day I felt like ass.

I strongly believe that life is better - and not as full of regret and hangovers - if you just get your butt home and in pajamas by midnight. I don't always follow my own advice, but when I do, I wake up on time and I am productive the next day. If I don't, I sleep late and, when I do drag myself out of bed, my brain is good for nothing more than watching Lifetime movies or reality shows on E! (otherwise known as Hangover TV).

Another important piece of advice to remember next time you're out: "Never go with a hippie to a second location." - Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock.


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But this advice is not why I have called you here today, my friends.

No, what I'd like to talk about is my complicated feelings every time I hear news of poor Lindsay.

I hate her.

My friend and former coworker Rob used to keep a list of people who belonged on the Celebrity Death Plane. Lindsay is at the top of the list.

I bet she makes the lives of everyone around her stressful and miserable. I bet everyone around her is on guard all the time because they never know what's going to happen.

When you spend time with an addict, you can't be sure if the night will go well or go horribly off the rails. You can't be sure if you will be showered with love or pounded with insults. You might get pushed to the ground. You might laugh so hard you almost wet your pants. You might wonder how things got so out of control. You might wonder what you can do to fix it all. (Nothing. You can do nothing to fix it.)

Seriously, I hate this bitch for going around making the lives of those who love her harder than they have to be.

I sincerely believe she is incapable of getting her act together. She will never sober up. Rehab will never work for her. Screw this selfish little twit, I think.

So here's where it gets complicated.

In my lifetime, I have loved an addict. And I get incredibly frustrated when people say cruel things.

Like:
"The people around the addict should have done more. I would have done more." (No, you wouldn't have. If you have the secret for getting addicts to clean up, you could bottle it, sell it, and make billions of dollars.)
"The addict is just a piece of shit. Cut him/her out of your life. It's not that hard." (Yes, it is that hard. Have you ever loved someone?)
"The addict got what was coming to him/her. The addict was asking for trouble. The addict should just stop. It's not hard." (Please shut up.)

All of these statements come from a lack of experience with living with an addict.

And do you see that paradox of the things people say? You should do more, but you should kick that person out of your life. You should do more while you care less.

Good luck with all that.

The addict is not a piece of shit or a scumbag or beneath you. (Go ahead and thank your lucky stars right now that you aren't one.) He/she has a problem. A real, huge, awful, life-defining problem.

Lindsay Lohan has a real, huge, awful, life-defining problem.

I wish she could sober up and have a nice life in which she is home by midnight wearing pajamas and fuzzy socks, in which she wakes up the next morning feeling good and hopeful about life.

I doubt very much that she ever wakes up feeling good and hopeful. I think she wakes up with a bottomless pit of need that she attempts to fill with pills and booze and whatever else might make her feel better for a moment or a day.

I find myself wishing that someone would reach out a hand to Lindsay Lohan and help guide her back to a safe and healthy life.

Then I realize I am doing the same thing I did for years and years. I thought I could be that hand. I thought I could figure out the magical thing that would guide someone back to a safe and healthy life. That was a lie I told myself. In fact, I still tell myself that lie sometimes. It always comes to me in the dark, after midnight.

See, I told you. After midnight is a wasteland full of pits of quicksand. After midnight is the fire swamp from The Princess Bride. Watch out for the ROUSes.

Even though I can't stand this ridiculous woman, I remember what it was like to love someone like that. I would hate it if people placed bets on when he would die. (Check the comment section of any story about Lindsay Lohan today and you will find those types of wagers.)

It would break my heart if people said bad things about him or hated him for it...even though sometimes I hate him for it.

Part of me wants to see Lindsay Lohan crash and burn. Part of me wants to revel in the Schadenfreude. Here's your seat assignment on the Celebrity Death Plane, Ms. Lohan.

But I already know exactly what it's like to watch someone crash and burn.

It's not pretty. It's not entertaining. It's not anything anyone was asking for. It's not anything anyone deserves.

It's only human wreckage.

Do you want a front row seat for that? Trust me, you don't.

It's past your curfew. Go home.

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A Little Sunday Morning Rant

Whenever someone dies after a life marked by substance abuse and addiction, the "wise" folks of the Internet like to throw around the word "selfish." These people also do this when someone dies by suicide. "I would never do that to my spouse/children/parents/friends. I would never be so selfish."

There is also the ever-popular, "Why didn't anyone do anything? Well, why didn't they do MORE?" commentary. On top of this, there is the "Let's blame the spouse/ex-spouse" contingent.

With the news of Whitney Houston's death yesterday, that sort of talk ramped up again. Houston was found dead in her hotel room. There is no official cause of death yet, but everyone seems to understand it was likely drugs or the effects of previous abuse.

My father-in-law often says drug and alcohol abuse will lead you one of two places: Behind bars or in the ground. Sometimes it happens quickly. Other times, it happens slowly. But, have no doubt, it will happen.

Funny how people don't throw around that "selfish" word when someone dies after a life of eating fried foods or years of smoking cigarettes or a life of driving too fast while not wearing a seat belt. No one ever says it when someone dies because every day they chose to eat something they shouldn't have and filled their arteries with crud.

No, it's always the drug addict who is "selfish."

Addiction is a disease. Be glad you don't have it. Be glad you don't have to live with someone who has it, that you don't have to have people wonder why no one did anything about it or tell you to your face, six hours after a funeral, that you were in denial. Even if you know you weren't in denial, that stings. Even if you know that this person doesn't know one damn thing about you and your life. Even if you know that you drove a person to rehab twice. That you begged him to stop. That you bought into the bull shit that if the person loved you and your children enough, he would stop.

Have you ever tried to fight a demon? You probably haven't. Try to imagine if you could do it. Try to imagine the last time you attempted to deny yourself something relatively innocuous like a Diet Coke or another cup of coffee or an extra serving of mashed potatoes. Then times that craving by about a zillion.

Good for you, wise and superior people of the Internet, that you don't actually know how addiction or codependency works. That means you haven't had to deal with something that millions of people struggle through every day. You're lucky. Thank God for your blessings. Thank God you always do the right thing and that you would be sure to "do something" if someone you knew had a drug problem. Thank God you don't know what it's like to live with your own frustrating feelings of failure, that you have to remind yourself every day that you did do all you could do and that, sometimes, it doesn't work. Thank God.

And then after you've adequately thanked Him for your good luck? Perhaps you could shut the fuck up.

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The Shining - Notes from the Overlook Hotel

Homer: “All work and no beer make Homer …. something-something.”
Marge: “Go crazy?”

Homer: “Don’t mind if I do!” 

References to The Shining, the classic horror movie from Stanley Kubrick based on the classic horror novel by Stephen King, keep coming up lately.

OK, they keep coming up because I keep bringing them up.

Perhaps it's because it's getting cold and dark outside. Perhaps it's because I'm a writer trying to finish a memoir in a fixed amount of time. Perhaps it's because I work at home and I don't feel the need to shower as often so my hair gets greasy and I look like Shelley Duvall. Perhaps it's because my son keeps using his finger as a puppet and saying "Redrum." (This isn't actually happening.)

The Shining, the book not the movie, is truly excellent. I'm a huge fan of Stephen King (aka "Uncle Stevie"). In seventh grade, I read the ending of "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," one of the novellas in Different Seasons, at least six or seven times because I loved it so much. I read several of his books during a brief time period in the early '90s. I had a lot of weird dreams that summer. There are images from his novels, from Carrie and The Dead Zone and Cujo, that have stayed with me for 20 years.  It takes an amazing writer to create scenes and characters with such staying power.

I like The Shining, the novel, better than the movie. Mainly because (SPOILER ALERT) Dick Hollarann, the character played by the awesome Scatman Crothers in the film, does not die in the book. His death in the movie is ridiculous and unnecessary. Screw you, Stanley Kubrick. Yeah, I said it. Why'd you have to kill the black man? In the book, Dick comes back to the Overlook Hotel and helps Wendy and Danny Torrance escape from Jack.

Which brings us back to the reason I keep bringing up The Shining of late.

Jack is a writer. Jack is going nuts. Jack is sick to death of Shelley Duvall's greasy hair and whiny attitude.

Stephen King is so amazing because he can take something typical and normal such as a writer struggling with writer's block (who is also an alcoholic dealing with his desire to drink) and he can turn it into an epic tale of fear and addiction. Uncle Stevie knows of what he speaks. He is a writer and a recovering alcoholic.

And, sure, he's telling you a story that, on the surface, sounds like a ghost story about a haunted hotel, but it's really about people and how people are haunted. The monster you're afraid of is within.

Eek. Deep stuff. Calm down, I'm not going to take an axe to the bathroom door. (Though I may take some WD-40 to the bedroom doors. They all squeak. A person can't go from the bedroom to the bathroom without alerting the entire household.)

Mostly, I'm just going to continue writing. I'm going to keep pecking away until I get this story (my personal haunting) out onto paper. I'm going to consider how addiction is a monster that lives within a person and that sometimes the monster wins. I'm going to think about how to tell a story with the message that the monster sometimes wins the battle. He does not win the war.

I'm also going to wash my hair so I don't look so much like Shelley Duvall.

"I find I am excited, so excited I can hardly hold the pencil in my trembling hand. I think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

I hope Andy is down there.

I hope I can make it across the border.

I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.

I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.

I hope. "

The last lines of "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" from Different Seasons

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