Only drugs can cure a broken heart

The Missus and The Boy have been in SoCal for a week now.

I’ve gotten a lot of writing done, but the dog has gone completely to pieces.

At first it was funny, but as the days ticked by and Mommy did not return, he’s taking on more and more aspects of a junkie going through withdrawal.

Sidebar: Which brings up my favorite unanswered question about addiction. I believe as a retired junkie and a drunk myself, I am allowed to discuss my own peeps...

What’s the difference between being in love with a woman who’s bad for you and addicted to a drug that’s good for you? Which is bad and which is good? Are lovers addicted to each other? If you describe new love clinically, you might as well be describing two people strung out on crack. I think the word “addiction” isn’t a diagnosis, it’s a value judgment. Depending on what one is addicted to, one is either a hero (Superman: addicted to enforcing truth, justice and the American Way) or a villain (Jeff Dahmer, addicted to eating young human boys).

It’s for this reason I think calling addiction a “disease” is a slight to people with proper diseases, which by definition is shit that jumps up and gets you, not something you repeatedly do to yourself even though you know—every time you do it—it’s killing you. If your “disease” involves you voluntarily lifting that bottle to your lips or lowering your nose to the grindstone, what you have is more accurately categorized as a mental illness, like depression; not a disease, like cancer.

We don’t do addicts any favors by mis-casting them as victims. Victims aren’t expected to pick themselves up by the seat of their pants and take responsibility for their misfortunes, but addicts absolutely have to.

Anyway, another blog for another day.

The dog, Jake, has lost his shit completely. It’s just like he’s withdrawing from a drug (in this case, The Missus, to whom he is singularly devoted). The first couple days he was confused and disoriented and planted himself as close to on top of me as he possibly could.

Then he developed a limp, I kid you not. I’m convinced it’s 100% psychosomatic.

When that failed to produce his mistress, he began to sit in her office and groan, piteously and repeatedly. I eventually moved his bed in there, but he ended up treating my effort like it was a violation of his special relationship with The Missus. He hasn’t been back in there since I took this picture:

I’m at the point now where I’m keeping him away from sharp objects. He’s jittery, twitchy, scared—just altogether worthless. He doesn’t even eat until he’s almost too weak from hunger to drag himself to his bowl.

Tonight was the last night before the key family members return and I ran out of patience. He was limping around, jumping at every sound and looking at me with the eyes of Methuselah, not eating his food… I grabbed one of the Doggie Downers we’d been given a while ago when we had to board him and dropped it down his gullet.

About an hour later I realized I wasn’t tripping over his mopey, dopey ass every couple of minutes, and went to go check on him:

That was about six hours ago, now. He’s gotten up in the last half hour, eaten his dinner, came in for a rambunctious cuddle and is now wreaking havoc on his giant polystyrene bone. I think I pulled him out of his steep decline, at least long enough for The Missus to return home tonight and set his world aright.

No question about it, he’s got it bad. We need to get him to a meeting and have him start working his steps, pronto. Please leave your contact information in the comments if you’re interested in being his sponsor.