September 26, 2002 | 10:20 AM

So since I�ve been on my cleanse and have been weaned off just about every substance upon which I am dependent (except cigarettes�for the life of me I just can�t quit �em) I�ve been thinking a lot about addiction.

Actually, it�s been a bit of a motif in my life for awhile. Reading Caroline Knapp�s Drinking: A Love Story and listening to Aimee Mann�s addiction/obsession concept album Lost in Space will do that to you. Also the past year or so has revolved around confronting a lot of my own obsessions and deep seated needs. I wonder, what exactly is an addiction? Is there some invisible line you cross one day that sends you off into the netherworld of dependency? And why can one person drink or use drugs, have a good time, and just grow out of it, while someone else gets stuck and torn apart? Is it a matter of chemistry or psychology or both? Is it truly a disease? I know it has nothing to do with strength or morality or any of that bullshit because I�ve seen some fine, strong, kind people succumb to their obsessions.

And where can you draw the line between abuse and real hard core enslavement? For instance, When I was in college, I used speed voraciously and it did throw a big wrench into the gears of my life for awhile. But then one day I just quit. It wasn�t a big deal. It wasn�t hard to stop. I just sort of grew out of it. But sugar. That�s something with which I�ve had a long and painful relationship. And the thought of giving up my cigarettes makes me break into a cold sweat. I need those fucking cigarettes mutherfuker. And don�t you try to take them away from me or I�ll cut you.

So back to definitions.

We all probably know people (or ourselves for that matter) that obviously have a problem. They get violently smashed and don�t come home for days or drive drunk and slam into a parking meter. But I almost think in some ways it�s better to be in that position�to be obviously fucked up�than be someone who�s pretty functional and outwardly seems OK but is actually really stunted and whose life increasingly revolves around a substance. It�s harder to stay in denial, I would think, if you are really on the brink and everyone knows it. But what about those people who languish for years and years, who go to the same job every day, who live the same boring life they always have, who come home and get wasted every single night alone to wash away the sadness and boredom. Who become less and less aware of how enslaved they are to a drink or a drug. And nobody notices because they are functioning members of society, while all the time they�re turning into zombies. Those people who have to know where the nearest liquor store is and when it closes and have to make sure they�re out of the movie theater by 11:00 PM sharp because god forbid they don�t have a twelve pack in the fridge. Or who won�t save up for that creative writing class they want to take because it would mean two less thirty packs a week. The people who have the next drink constantly on the back of their mind. Who plow soulessly through the day thinking,

One more hour until I can have that drink. I just have to do this bullshit for on more hour and then it�s off to the bar.

And who just can�t see, who have blinders on to just how big alcohol (or drugs or food or whatever) has become in their lives. And how it�s kept them stuck. There�s always a million excuses, and drinking is never the problem. Drinking, they see, is the solution to the problems.

I feel bad so I have a beer.

I hate my job so I have a shot.

My girlfriend�s a bitch so I�ll do a line.

I can�t pay the rent so I�ll drink another beer.

When maybe if they just fucking stopped drinking the beer, they�d wake up and get another job, work shit out with their girlfriends (or leave their girlfriends), and have enough money to pay the rent.

Denial. I am really fascinated by denial. It is a luxury I no longer allow myself. But one I wallowed in for years and years.

I understand that feeling so well. Because I think eating disorders and alcoholism or drug addiction are all one in the same. Once your life starts revolving around something�be it a substance or a person, or an idea (i.e. religious fanaticism) you just stop growing. Instead of moving forward, you're in a holding pattern, like a planet orbiting the sun.

Caroline Knapp, who was a recovering alcoholic before she died this past year, said something that really struck a chord with me. In Drinking: A Love Story, she wrote (and I�m paraphrasing) that when you drink alcoholically, you never grow beyond the point at which you started drinking alcoholically until you stop doing so. The reason being that instead of forging through life and fucking up and feeling pain and learning what intimacy is etc., you allow the alcohol to serve as sort of a lubricant for all those bumps and sharp points along the way�the ones that bang you up and hurt you but also forge your character (Think Hemingway�s great line �In the end the world breaks everyone and some are strong in the broken places.�) You never have to face those tests alone because you always have your trusty buddy Absolute 151 or Budweiser or cocaine or whatever the hell it is to go through it with you.

When I read that passage, I remembered all of the times I�ve used something to save me from having to face the world or myself�whether it be binge drinking or bingeing and purging, and I realized how much I had missed out on. I mean Christ, I developed an eating disorder at the age of 9. That�s a long time to remain stunted.

And then I thought back on so many conversations I had about really serious shit�abortions and death and poverty and more�while under the influence of alcohol or drugs or something else. Because those subjects and events seemed impossible to face head on, and often because the people I was dealing with were chronically drunk, and that was the only way I felt I could get onto their level and relate to them. And then I have to ask myself, why is it that I am so attracted to people who can�t deal with the world without alcohol? What exactly draws me into those relationships? It�s a question I�ve been pondering for awhile and only now just formulating an answer.

Addiction is scary and unnerving and chaotic, but it�s also boring. It�s boring and predictable. Recently I was hanging out with a wonderful person whom I love dearly who also happens to be a raging alcoholic and he was telling me the same story he�d told me fifty times. He was drunk. We were having the same conversation we�d had over and over again, about our relationship. We�ve had this conversation for years. And it�s like a needle stuck in a groove. And I was bored.

The thing is, I like drinking. I have a good time drinking for the most part. I do tend to drink a great deal when I do drink, but I drink less and less as I get older. And it becomes less and less interesting to me as an occupation. I can pretty much take it or leave it at this point, and not drinking is very easy for me. Which isn�t to say that I don�t use it as a crutch, as a way to feel better, get loose, be more charming, less shy, more secure etc.

But food�that�s a different story. Being on the cleanse, that has really forced me to dig through all of the fucking garbage still attached to my psyche. Even though I haven�t been actively bulimic or starving myself or just plain gorging on crap for a long time, I still think like a bulimic. And I probably always will to some extent. It�s very interesting to sort it all though now that I have such a structured and limited diet (for the time being.) one that is cleaning me out from head to toe.

Anyway, I have to get back to work now, but I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on all of this because I find it really interesting.