The Essence Of My Addiction; The Addiction Is My Essence
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/22/nx-s1-5530055/elizabeth-gilbert-memoir-all-the-way-to-the-river
Hi, I’m Len and I’m an addict. I’ve been in remission for 12 years.
Here’s the story. It’s right after Yom Kippur. This seems like the right time.
In my novel, Conflict of Interest, one of the protagonists is sent to a special “ranch” to do equine therapy, working with horses to address psychological problems.
To make this long episode short (read the book if you like. The Amazon link is on the web site), the character is asked to move the huge therapy horse with one finger. Horses are large, powerful social animals that move in groups in the wild and are very much in the present moment. Thus, you too must be in the present moment to get them to do what you want.
The protagonist drops the reins of the horse right in front of him. He’s eye-to-eye with the horse. He then circles the animal as he is told to do by the human therapeutic group leader and the horse does not move. The horse knows where the human trying to move him is at every moment. The protagonist is eye-to-eye with the horse once again. The therapist present tells the protagonist to aim one finger right at the horse’s chest while thinking about the person in his life that most troubles him.
The finger goes up, the man steps forward, and the horse retreats. The protagonist wraps his arms around the horse in tears without fully knowing why. When the therapy group (a collection of drug addicts, alcoholics, and nymphomaniacs) is debriefed, our protagonist, who thought he fit into none of the therapy groups, realizes that he too is an addict. He’s an academic physician and biochemist. He’s addicted to achieving. Gold stars are his heroin. He cannot get enough personal recognition. He begins to heal once he realizes that he is an “achievaholic” and needs help if he is not to burnout or waste his body with stress. In fact, he begins to understand why he did distance running and why he still needs to lift weights and participate in as much physical movement as his aging body allows. To move is to achieve life. He must move.
It may come as no surprise that Conflict of Interest is a semi-autobiographical novel that draws heavily from my years as an MD Anderson vice president and my interactions with two MD Anderson presidents. If you want to know more of the story, read the book, but obviously I’m the protagonist and all that I described above really happened.
This brings me to the attachment. It’s a link to an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air by Tanya Mosely of Elizabeth Gilbert, the author if Eat, Pray, Love. She has a new memoir out, but the part of the interview that struck me like lightening was when Gilbert was talking about her addictions (pleasing people; loving people) and those of her female lover who was dying of pancreatic cancer (hard drugs).
At one point Gilbert said that the addiction to love was really the basis of all addictions. I thought about that hard in relation to my own addictions to achieving and to life-affirming motion and I think she’s right.
I am the first-born son of first-generation American Jews. Succeeding was everything. Much of my early relations with my parents was around me getting positive feedback for my performance. I read very early. I was always memorizing something. My father won quarters from people when he bet them whether or not I could identify a car. I could because I could read the hubcaps. My performing success was probably perceived by me as love. Maybe it was love. Thus, when I got addicted to love, which Ms. Gilbert thinks we all do, it was associated with performing. Thus, I am addicted to performing and achieving.
It’s a good story and may or may not be so, but I do think this is the essence of my addiction and now that it is who I am, I just cannot help it and the addiction has become my essence. I must write. I must perform. I must achieve. I must move.
In theory, I am retired and don’t need to write a blog, author books, or do a podcast. I don’t need to do as much exercise as I do. And yet, there it is.
I know it’s all a little Freudian. Maybe it’s a lot Freudian, but I think it’s all true. As the late, great Robert Palmer might say:
“Might was well face it you’re addicted to love.”
And for me, love was achievement–my next gold star, until I met a therapeutic horse. I’m not cured, but without that horse, I never would have been able to withstand my firing as a VP, my sojourn in Washington, DC, or everything that came later from medical issues to family trauma.
I believe that we can change who we are in some ways, but not others. In the end, if you are going to move a big horse, you must learn to be present and know your addictions and everyday try to drill into your essence.
What better thing do you have to do?
When I spent the year after having been removed as a vice president and before my fellowship on Capitol Hill, I was a participant in the American Leadership Forum, a group that creates relationships among leaders in Houston. One of the leaders of our group called me Ten Step Len implying I wasn’t quite through the Twelve Step Program. I believe that he was right. That was over 15 years ago and I believe that I have finally finished the program, but like all addicts I still am addicted down deep and could fall off the wagon at any time. But like all graduates of Twelve Step Programs, I have a sponsor to help me and a course of action should the cravings get too strong.
It’s been a process. It’s not over.
Hi. I’m Len and I’m an addict. It’s quite a while since my last gold star. And it feels just fine.
