Recovery

For almost 10 years I have engaged in a terrible and destructive addiction that has controlled my life. I've fits when I can't get it. I've lashed out at loved-ones when they get in my way. When I'm not using it I can't stop thinking about it. And for the last day I've tried to stop, but I've had awful physical withdrawal symptoms.

But I just can't live without Chapstick (or the generic name lip balm). It all started when I wanted to look cool and beautiful like everyone else: free of acne. After battling pretty bad acne for a few years, I got put on accutane. That little pill of modified vitamin A that clears out acne also dried out every pore in my body. When my regime started, so started my lip balm addiction.

In the beginning, I tried things like Carmex which my friend Paul swore by. It was this strange, thick jelly you smeared out of a little tub and applied liberally to your lips. It had a faint mint tinge and tingled my lips. I think I was under the impression it was somehow healthier than Chapstick. But my Carmex always ended up full of tobacco, since I had taken up smoking at the time.

I eventually opted for the chapstick, but only because I could get the delicious cherry. I didn't mind that it made my lips slightly pinker, I thought of it and cigarette dangling from my mouth as saying "Come hither." Eventually, I made my way to the black tube, then settled on the very expensive and bourgeois blue moisturizer stick. I was paying almost $2 a stick to support the habit.

Now chapstick had some downsides pretty early on. The most ironic downside was that my fight against acne got me on chapstick, but it was the chapstick that eventually exacerbated the growth of my acne. The creamy goodness clogged my pores and in the worst spot: the edge of my lips. This wasn't the occasional pimple, no these were the monstrous and repetitive lip zits that screamed "Herpes!" to any passing person. I popped them as often as possible and always ended up with deep red sores with the freshest hint of blood. Other than my inability to dress myself, nothing was more damaging to my dating life.

Over the last few years the problem has been that I started wearing tighter pants. I carry cigarettes, a lighter, keys and chapstick: the four most necessary things in my life. And despite the fact that the bulge of the chapstick makes me look like I have a very small, tubular penis, I was so addicted to it that I couldn't let it go.

For ten years, I smeared the stick on my lips and barely even considered the physical ramifications of the nasty habit. What if I got lip cancer? What if my body stopped being able to care for my lips?

Yesterday, my lip balm disappeared. Vanished. It was no where to be found in my pockets. I imagine it got tangled in something and fell on the street. Since I was too drunk for most of the day to go and get any more, I decided to go cold turkey.

I'm happy to say I've gone my first full day without chapstick. I can now look forward to each morning feeling the real freedom from addiction that comes after the first cigarette of the day and not having to apply that lip balm.

Praise.