The Fad Man: The Personification of Addiction and Pain
AFF Newsletter on Substack #50
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In today’s article, I will continue along the theme of my last post; The Rise and Fall of The Fad Man. I will talk more about the personification of The Fad Man - a character who rose to prominence during the painful limbo period of my drinking days - and I will share a couple more phases I went through before I finally ditched the booze.
Let me know if you went through any of these fads during your drinking days.
Who was The Fad Man?
The Fad Man was born out of a desire to find a solution to my drinking. He was a character created under the guise of wanting to quit booze but without actually having to. He was the personification of addiction and pain with a fancy gimmick. He was a man, lost and broken, just searching for something to cling to in his life.
My wife dubbed me The Fad Man one day after I came up with another plan to limit my drinking. She had heard them all before. She had listened to numerous plans I’d concocted over the years to cut back and she had witnessed more fads dreamt up by my alcoholic mind as I tried desperately to escape my pain.
Needless to say, I ran with The Fad Man gimmick and that became my moniker for a while. I took on the identity of many people during this time; DJ, event promoter, merch seller, triathlete, podcaster and blogger. Sadly, none of them were truly successful because booze always managed to blow them up.
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Does this resonate with you? How many things did you try to do to calm your drinking? How many fads did you go through as you searched for something, mixed with alcohol, to cure your pain? How many new things did you start only for them to be destroyed by your drinking?
These phases only served to make my drinking worse. The DJing and selling merch were the pinnacle of my boozing - not for the fun, although I did have some, but for the quantity. The amount of alcohol I drank during that period was only rivalled by the few years before I got married.
Then there was blogging, which proved to be a gift and a curse!
Blogging - an unlikely friend and foe
It's crazy to think now but I started writing about addiction long before I got sober and even before I realised I had a real problem. My obsession with blogging was born when I started creating content for a fundraising event I was hosting. Before long, after writing the marketing material, I found myself writing about my life.
Among those early articles, which I sadly cannot access anymore, was some real pain and knowing what I know now, was a complete cry for help. But it’s funny how the alcoholic mind works because instead of seeking help from others, I decided to start a sobriety challenge blog. And of course, I tried desperately for it to become my identity.
First of all - and let me know whether you tried this - I wanted to live a Straight Edge lifestyle. For those of you who don’t know what Straight Edge is, here’s an overview: Straight Edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs.
So, I tried to adopt the principles of the movement and follow the Straight Edge way. But as you may have guessed, I was unsuccessful. I would put together a few days and relapse back to booze. That meant an end to that blog and with it, all of the social media channels I’d created around it. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Oh… there’s more!
Next, was the introduction of the ‘3 drink only blog’ and all the accompanying social media channels. The premise was that I would only drink three drinks when I went out. However, I never defined the rules to myself - because I didn’t want to - and so I drank the strongest drinks possible and ultimately, gave up that ‘identity’ too.
After that came the ‘total sobriety blog’, followed by the ‘vodka and water blog’, and so on. None of these ideas stopped me from drinking though but blogging did help me get my feelings out. These blogs were like an earlier version of what I do now but the difference is, I’m sober!
With over five and a half years of sobriety under my belt, I’m in a much better place to be helping others and hopefully inspiring them to ditch the fads, cut out the drinking-related identities and face up to the fact that they don’t need to go through this pain anymore. Recovery is possible.
I watch on in pain as people create social media accounts and blogs around getting sober when they’ve not strung any sobriety together beforehand. I’ve been there! I’ve followed people who’ve created their own version of my old blogs and social media accounts only to see them relapse and close their accounts like I did.
I’ve witnessed many people place more importance on their tweets than their recovery. I’ve followed blogs where the writer has set themselves similar challenges to the ones I did only to give up because they keep on relapsing. I’ve read their pain and I’ve noticed their addiction jumping out of the page. I’ve been there!
I remember creating multiple social media accounts based on getting sober. I remember calling them stuff like ‘RoscoeGetsSober’, ‘NoBoozeRoscoe’, etc. But I did so without trying to put in the proper work to quit booze or without knowing that I had a serious problem. I was being led by my addiction to alcohol.
Each blog. Each social media account. Each fad. Each business idea at the time was a cry for help. They weren’t real. I was being driven by addiction and no fad, blog, podcast, Twitter account, t-shirt, exercise craze or hardcore punk subculture was going to help me quit drinking. I needed help.
I’m not knocking anyone for trying any of these to limit or quit their destructive drinking habit but the reality is, as it was for me, until they sincerely acknowledge they have a problem and are willing to do anything to get sober, then nothing outlined above is going help them in the long run. I speak from experience.
Yes, it will hopefully help them string together some time away from booze but what happens when they fail is they will feel a sense of shame and end up drinking again. Without putting in the proper work, a social media account or a blog isn’t going to help them stay sober. That’s the harsh truth.
Here’s a related post on this from the AFFATHERS website:
I desperately want you to get sober. I don’t want you to feel the pain I did at the hands of my alcohol addiction. I don’t want you to put your pain on display for likes and instant gratification. I want you to realise that to get sober and get to the root cause of your addiction, you need to show up, take action and focus on healing yourself.
External distractions will not help you with necessary internal actions.
Thank you for reading “The Fad Man: The Personification of Addiction and Pain”. If anything in this newsletter resonated with you, then I’d love to hear from you:
Check out the last premium post “The Rise and Fall of The Fad Man”.
Take care of yourself and your family,
Roscoe | @AFFathers
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Ahh yes Fad Man I resemble that remark. I started blogging under the “Adventures of Business Communications” moniker back in like ‘03. Built it up to several thousand followers. Met Seth Godin at an early vlogging conference. Thought I was the shit. Writing while scotched took over and I blew it all up in a free years, writing a flaming departure post that can still be found out there.
I understand Fad Man.