Substitution isn’t always a bad thing
August 18, 2024 2:16 AM Subscribe
Run-of-the-mill drunk in a dive bar. I was one once. I’d wake up determined to have just two or three drinks, then have many, many more than two or three. As with playing Scrabble, doing otherwise felt impossible. In Alcoholics Anonymous, we’re told that it’s common to substitute one addiction for another. Surely, I tell myself, this new unmanageability is preferable to the old one. It’s possible I’m right. It’s also possible I’m wrong. from Scrabble, Anonymous by Brad Phillips [The Paris Review; ungated]
Scrabble, previously
Scrabble, previously
Sigh, playing whack-a-mole with serial addictions is not the answer. But hey, it's in the Paris Review, so it must be the cool thing to do.
I speak from personal experience, but thank God things are much better today.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 3:43 AM on August 18 [7 favorites]
I speak from personal experience, but thank God things are much better today.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 3:43 AM on August 18 [7 favorites]
rabia.elizabeth, though the article ends on a positive note (the obsession/addiction is a shared joyful experience, not a sordid private one, and is said not to hurt others around the addict in the way that alcoholism does—though, having my own ‘healthy addictions,’ I know that that's not automatically true), it spends much, much more time talking about the ways that this new addiction parallels the old:
posted by It is regrettable that at 4:02 AM on August 18 [4 favorites]
Nonetheless, the thinking is obsessive and constant. The unwilling, unconscious anagramming of words is the primary side effect of a life devoted to Scrabble.
I felt like I was going to do something wrong, something addicty, something I hadn’t done in a very long time.
I feel like I’m being harassed by my mind, forced to think about something I’d rather not be thinking about.This seems to be not at all presenting the new addiction as cool, despite the relatively happy ending.
Addiction interrupts productivity. An alcoholic in the office takes long lunch breaks. Editing this essay today, on six different occasions I’ve stopped to open ISC.RO. Each time, I’ve played more games than I’d intended. As a result, my editor is still waiting.
posted by It is regrettable that at 4:02 AM on August 18 [4 favorites]
Eh. Methadone addiction is a big step up from heroin addiction, even if methadone addiction has its downsides.
posted by PaulVario at 4:54 AM on August 18 [8 favorites]
posted by PaulVario at 4:54 AM on August 18 [8 favorites]
Surely, I tell myself, this new unmanageability is preferable to the old one. It’s possible I’m right
'cirrhosis' is better to have as a scrabble word
(14 points)
Scrabble, previously
every letter, chavenet? beautiful
posted by HearHere at 6:10 AM on August 18 [10 favorites]
'cirrhosis' is better to have as a scrabble word
(14 points)
Scrabble, previously
every letter, chavenet? beautiful
posted by HearHere at 6:10 AM on August 18 [10 favorites]
Lovely essay. I especially like how, somewhat independent of the addiction question, he describes the semantic emptiness of Scrabble:
Despite my being a "language" person, despite playing Scrabble with my family growing up, I realized at some point that I find the game's inherent meaninglessness-disguised-as-language maddening.
posted by HeroZero at 6:13 AM on August 18 [14 favorites]
This is ultimately what the game is about: memorizing words with no concern for their meaning.
If you play Scrabble seriously, no question from an opponent is more tedious than “What does that word mean?” Despite being a game centered on words, Scrabble isn’t about words; it’s about strategy, probability, and memorization. Misunderstanding this fact about the game leads people to unpleasant realizations.
Despite my being a "language" person, despite playing Scrabble with my family growing up, I realized at some point that I find the game's inherent meaninglessness-disguised-as-language maddening.
posted by HeroZero at 6:13 AM on August 18 [14 favorites]
At one point we were chasing the dragon with daily Sedecordle and Duotrigordle, but we’ve now managed to limit our addiction to daily Wordle and La Palabra del Día, both competing with family, and no further than Sequence Octordle in English. (I admit it does help that the post-quordle games become progressively more mechanical and less fun due to overlapping letters.)
posted by mubba at 6:14 AM on August 18 [1 favorite]
posted by mubba at 6:14 AM on August 18 [1 favorite]
The, um, compulsive need to rearrange letters to form new words sounds like OCD. Which I'm sure is a condition that dovetails, a lot, with addiction. As does bingeing TV shows on Netflix, watching TikTok for hours at a stretch, checking Twitter 600 times a day (note: delete Twitter), and constantly posting on MetaFilter. However, none of those things are likely to destroy all of your relationships, blow out your liver, or cause you to spend your child's trust fund on them. Alcoholism, though.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:45 AM on August 18 [8 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:45 AM on August 18 [8 favorites]
Yeah. I don’t know much about this but aren’t alcoholism and drug addiction characterised by a physical need (and tolerance) for ever-larger doses? Is there such a thing as extra-strength or double-dose Scrabble? This sounds like it might be better characterised as an extreme mental dependence. You can’t just swap out embroidery for heroin - can you?
posted by Phanx at 6:51 AM on August 18 [4 favorites]
posted by Phanx at 6:51 AM on August 18 [4 favorites]
Anagramming serves as useful "brain noise" to keep my OCD thoughts manageable. I also move from obsessive focus to obsessive focus. Addiction runs in my family on both sides, both chemical and behavioral addictions. Thankfully I have no real fond ess for getting drunk, but I have a very hard time stopping gambling once I start. I don't have any insight the author of the article lacks. I just wanted to offer that my personal experience does reinforce both the author's point that "safe" addictions can be consuming and kittens-for-breakfast's observation about the connection to OCD and other kinds of anxiety.
If anyone is suffering with this, cognitive behavioral therapy (and the Syrian Orthodox Church) were big helps to me in getting things to a more manageable place.
posted by pattern juggler at 6:57 AM on August 18 [7 favorites]
If anyone is suffering with this, cognitive behavioral therapy (and the Syrian Orthodox Church) were big helps to me in getting things to a more manageable place.
posted by pattern juggler at 6:57 AM on August 18 [7 favorites]
Is there such a thing as extra-strength or double-dose Scrabble?
super scrabble [boardgamegeek]
posted by HearHere at 7:10 AM on August 18 [3 favorites]
super scrabble [boardgamegeek]
posted by HearHere at 7:10 AM on August 18 [3 favorites]
Speaking purely for myself (which is a very AA sort of thing), I've finally come around to realizing that, while it was very important to deal with my alcoholism, and the program has been invaluable in doing so, I still had a whole bunch of other issues that AA really couldn't help me with, and the pain and personal dysfunction that those problems have been causing me was a big factor in my addiction getting as bad as it did. Thus, I'm also getting professional therapy for those issues.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:12 AM on August 18 [16 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:12 AM on August 18 [16 favorites]
Anagramming serves as useful "brain noise" to keep my OCD thoughts manageable.
posted by pattern juggler
'Eponysterical Post' is an anagram of 'Ploy Creates Points'
posted by lalochezia at 7:12 AM on August 18 [11 favorites]
posted by pattern juggler
'Eponysterical Post' is an anagram of 'Ploy Creates Points'
posted by lalochezia at 7:12 AM on August 18 [11 favorites]
these paragraphs are perfect. david foster wallace vibe, but in a good way:
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:46 AM on August 18 [3 favorites]
> People attempting to recover from unhealthy obsessions unanimously report a tendency to overthink to the point of debility. Riding the subway uptown to the Scrabble club, I considered the ways I’d replaced one addiction with another.
I compared (played off the C, a bingo with OMPARED) and contrasted (played off CON, a bingo with TRASTED).
When addicted (played off the I, a bingo with ADDCTED) to a substance, thoughts of the substance become the background and foreground of your mindscape. As was the case with alcohol, my first and last thoughts of the day are usually Scrabble related (RELATED anagrams: ALTERED, REDEALT, ALERTED, TREADLE). These thoughts do not feel self-generated. Instead (DETAINS, STAINED, SAINTED …) I feel like I’m being harassed by my mind, forced to think about something I’d rather not be thinking about.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 7:46 AM on August 18 [3 favorites]
I feel like I’m being harassed by my mind, forced to think about something I’d rather not be thinking about.
I don't have addiction issues, but I relate all too well to this sentence. For me it's that screaming volcanic voice of all those who hate me in my brain, that I learned from other people, that never stops screaming about how awful I am. Harassed by my mind, indeed
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:32 AM on August 18 [8 favorites]
I don't have addiction issues, but I relate all too well to this sentence. For me it's that screaming volcanic voice of all those who hate me in my brain, that I learned from other people, that never stops screaming about how awful I am. Harassed by my mind, indeed
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:32 AM on August 18 [8 favorites]
Extra-strength Scrabble for compulsive anagrammers would be Clabbers, where legal character strings ("words") can be permuted on the board.
Many years ago, playing a casual game between rounds, I bingoed with AIRIEST through an X and commented that J-- S--, who was watching over my shoulder, could probably find a higher scoring bingo. No, he said, that was the only one. J-- himself would play Clabbers between rounds, which I found inscrutable as the search space was too vast. Rather than anagramming seven tiles and looking for hooks on the board, Clabbers requires anagramming every line on the board and looking for hooks on your rack. Not the game for me, though another sort of brain may embrace it.
posted by backwoods at 9:00 AM on August 18 [5 favorites]
Many years ago, playing a casual game between rounds, I bingoed with AIRIEST through an X and commented that J-- S--, who was watching over my shoulder, could probably find a higher scoring bingo. No, he said, that was the only one. J-- himself would play Clabbers between rounds, which I found inscrutable as the search space was too vast. Rather than anagramming seven tiles and looking for hooks on the board, Clabbers requires anagramming every line on the board and looking for hooks on your rack. Not the game for me, though another sort of brain may embrace it.
posted by backwoods at 9:00 AM on August 18 [5 favorites]
> Despite my being a "language" person, despite playing Scrabble with my family growing up, I realized at some point that I find the game's inherent meaninglessness-disguised-as-language maddening.
There is an approach to competitive games where the winning play is not always considered the best play. A non-American friend once explained to me that this was a prevailing attitude in the sport of cricket: some actions were permitted under the rules, but they were just not done, because "that's not cricket". I don't know if this is still true of cricket.
In any case I avoid playing a word in Scrabble unless it feels like a natural word that I could use in real speech or writing. That wouldn't be cricket.
posted by Vox Clamato at 1:40 PM on August 18 [2 favorites]
There is an approach to competitive games where the winning play is not always considered the best play. A non-American friend once explained to me that this was a prevailing attitude in the sport of cricket: some actions were permitted under the rules, but they were just not done, because "that's not cricket". I don't know if this is still true of cricket.
In any case I avoid playing a word in Scrabble unless it feels like a natural word that I could use in real speech or writing. That wouldn't be cricket.
posted by Vox Clamato at 1:40 PM on August 18 [2 favorites]
You can’t just swap out embroidery for heroin - can you?
Addictions can have both physical and mental/emotional components. It's entirely possible (and common) to detox out of the physical need for heroin/alcohol/[insert other example substances] but still have the compulsive behavior that drove you to the substance in the first place. Without treating the root cause(s) under that behavior, we can easily slide back into addictive patterns using anything that provides dopamine (shopping/overspending, gambling, sex/love... even, yes, embroidery).
This is where therapy and (for some people) 12-step programs are most helpful - helping us find those underlying causes and processing them healthily.
posted by hanov3r at 10:29 AM on August 19 [1 favorite]
Addictions can have both physical and mental/emotional components. It's entirely possible (and common) to detox out of the physical need for heroin/alcohol/[insert other example substances] but still have the compulsive behavior that drove you to the substance in the first place. Without treating the root cause(s) under that behavior, we can easily slide back into addictive patterns using anything that provides dopamine (shopping/overspending, gambling, sex/love... even, yes, embroidery).
This is where therapy and (for some people) 12-step programs are most helpful - helping us find those underlying causes and processing them healthily.
posted by hanov3r at 10:29 AM on August 19 [1 favorite]
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I hope it does.
posted by ambrosen at 3:42 AM on August 18 [2 favorites]