Why I'm Beyond Grateful for My Drug Addiction
I came across an article yesterday that really rubbed me the wrong way. Like so many others, I watched The Tinder Swindler on Netflix, which is about these women who got conned out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by this dude pretending to be super rich. This article from The Independent titled “Tinder Swindler vs Inventing Anna: Why do we treat victims of romance scams so poorly?” made me want to flip a table. Whether it’s getting conned, joining a cult, getting suckered into an MLM or believing conspiracy theories, I’m wondering, “How do people fall for this nonsense?” And the more I think about it, the more I’m just ever-so-grateful for my drug addiction.
I watch a ton of documentaries about how people get suckered into getting conned or the above-mentioned situations like cults, MLMs, and the like. The two common traits I see constantly are people longing for human connection and a complete lack of intellectual humility.
Hell, right now, my girlfriend and I are watching season 2 of Love is Blind, and just like the first season, I’m blown away. My girlfriend is currently in grad school for social work, so we have some fun talks about psychology and mental health. As we watch Love is Blind, we keep discussing how there has to be some sort of deeply routed attachment issues with these people. Much like The Tinder Swindler stories, something must have happened to these people where they’re so willing to think diving so deep in a relationship so quickly is a good idea.
But after reading that anger-inducing article from The Independent, I decided to re-read one of my favorite books, The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova. Maria is coming on my podcast this week, and while she’s probably most well-known for her book The Biggest Bluff, The Confidence Game was the first book I read of hers, and it’s my favorite, so I’ll be talking to her about that one.
I love books about why we trust who we trust, why we believe what we believe, and why we think we’re so damn smart. Unchecked, all of these things together are a recipe for disaster. I just really want to know how people fall for these things, and part of this obsession is definitely because I don’t want to be taken for a fool.
So, what does this have to do with my addiction?
Remember how I said the two main traits I see are people with a longing for connection and lack of intellectual humility? Well, getting sober forced me to get over that shit real quick.
We have an epidemic going on where people completely lack intellectual humility. Everyone thinks they know everything, and as much as it drives me nuts, I get it. I used to be that person. As a full-blown raging drug addict and alcoholic, I literally thought I was the smartest person in the room at all times. Despite destroying my life with drugs and alcohol to the point where I was killing myself, had no job, and wasn’t even allowed to see my son, I thought I was at the top of the intellectual hierarchy.
Fortunately, my hubris brought me to the point where I had less than a 20% chance of living, and something had to change. While many see addiction as a curse, when you get sober and get your shit together, you see how it’s a blessing.
Do you have any idea how lucky I am to have to get sober and have everyone in 12-step rooms tell me how stupid I am? Whenever I’d discuss one of my bright ideas, they’d constantly remind me that my best thinking is what got me into this situation. I even had a sponsor who was my personal sherpa through sobriety to remind me what an idiot I was. Whenever I’d tell him some ridiculous thing I wanted to do or say, he’d say, “How’s that been working out for you?”
That experience was like someone taking my ego out behind a building in a dark alley and curb-stomping it, and I am so grateful for that.
It took some time, but one day, I had this amazing epiphany. My voice popped into my head this glorious day and said, “Wait a second Chris. Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are, and you don’t know shit.”
Looking back, that was the best day of my life. And since then, I’ve been on this never-ending path of curiosity and learning. On a daily basis, I realize how little I know and how much there is to learn. It’s why I read hundreds of non-fiction books each year from people who are way smarter than me.
What inspired me to sit down and write this was the fact that I just finished the chapter in The Confidence Game about how our ego makes us believe we’re the ones who would never get conned. We think we’re way too smart for that. And if you look at any of the explanations for conspiracy theorists or people who believe in really ridiculous stuff like the supernatural, they all think they’re really intelligent and just happen to know some things that nobody else does.
Take a step back and ask yourself if someone like Joe Rogan or Alex Jones think they’re dumb people. Of course not. Joe Rogan literally thinks a folder on his phone contains more COVID information than the entire scientific community.
But aside from the intellectual humility, I had to face my deep-rooted relationships problems. While The Independent piece wants to call us misogynists and victim blamers, I empathize with these women. In my addiction, and even for the first few years of my sobriety, I was in the most toxic relationships you could imagine. Why? Because my biggest fear was being alone. The idea of not being loved by someone was my worst nightmare.
When you have this type of desperation for a relationship, you lower your bar and drop every defense that’s supposed to be there to keep you safe. You let the other person get away with things that are unimaginable. If you had a friend dating someone like the people you’ve been dating, you’d scream at them.
Getting sober in the rooms of 12-step programs means you hear a lot of people telling you not to date for the first year. Although it wasn’t exactly by choice because I wasn’t the greatest catch at the time, I stayed single and celebrate for over 18 months when I got sober. It sucked and was hard, but it taught me something extremely valuable: it’s okay to be single.
Due to the intense work of the 12 steps and quite a bit of therapy, I learned why I had so many issues with relationships and was drawn to the wrong people. I learned why I was terrified of being alone. It took a little more trial and error, but I eventually loved myself enough to not put up with bullshit from anyone who was a potential partner, and it’s been such a freeing experience.
With that said, although I empathize with the women from The Tindler Swindler, I’d tell them they should probably go to therapy. Not just for recovering from the trauma of the experience, but to figure out why they thought any part of this relationship was a good idea.
One of the young women literally met this dude on Tinder, and on the first date agreed to go on his private jet to another country. I’m a big dude, and I’d be worried about a stranger I’m just meeting driving me to the opposite side of town, let alone traveling with them to another country away from anyone who can help if this person turns out to be a serial killer.
After that, the guy love bombs her, and after a handful of dates, he convinces her to get an apartment with him.
It’s reductionist and insulting to claim that anyone criticizing these victims and their poor decisions are simply a misogynist victim blamer. I’d be willing to bet a large chunk of the small amount of money I have that this woman hasn’t had a history of healthy relationships.
It bums me out that “you need therapy” is seen as an insult because it’s really not. If I had three wishes, one of them would be that everyone on earth had access to therapy and would actually participate. We’re all fucked up in our own unique ways, and we need an outside person to tell us about it and help us through it.
So, I guess to summarize all of this, you don’t need to become a drug addict like me to work through your issues or to develop intellectual humility. In fact, the reason I’m writing this is that I hope none of you need to reach rock bottom like I did in order to have this forced upon you. I hope you have that same “a-ha” moment that I had but way sooner than I did.
We evolved with ego for a very good reason. Confidence in who we are and how we make decisions is necessary for moving forward in life. But we aren’t cavemen anymore, and we can practice some intellectual humility. We have access to an endless amount of books and research where we can learn about how screwed up our thinking is. We can turn to people in our support group and ask them, “Do you think going on a plane with a guy for a first date is a good idea?” or, “Hey, do you think I should pull out a $50,000 loan to then loan it to this really rich guy?”
I can talk about this all day, but I hope you take something away from this piece. Because like I was taught when I got sober, our best thinking often gets us into a lot of trouble.
I’m currently writing a book about how we’re manipulated by the news, social media, technology, advertisers, and each other. It dives into the psychological history of manipulation, our biases, tribalism, and more.
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