Drama Addiction

One of the things that has been on my mind a lot lately is the idea of being addicted to drama. In fact, that's what led me to write last Friday's brief post.  It just seems to me that a lot of people -- myself included at one point -- have this need to have drama in our lives, no matter how much we complain about it.  I've called it being a drama queen (where the drama is clearly and directly owned by the queen) as opposed to a drama addict (who tends to needlessly involve themselves in other people's drama).

Imagine my delight when I read the part in Melody Beattie's book where she addresses the topic in those very words:

Many codependents become what some people call drama or crises addicts.  Strangely enough, problems can become addicting.  If we live with enough misery, crises, and turmoil long enough, teh fear and stimulation caused by problems can become a comfortable emotional experience.  In her excellect book, Getting Them Sober, Volume II, Toby Rice Drews refers to this feeling as "excited misery."  After a while, we can become so used to involving our emotions with problems and crises that we may get and stay involved with problems that aren't our concern.  We may even start making troubles or making troubles greater than they are to create stimulation for ourselves.  This is especially true fi we have greatly neglected our own lives and feelings.  When we're involved with a problem, we know we're alive.  When the problem is solved, we may feel empty and void of feeling.  Nothing to do.  Being in crisis becomes a comfortable place, and it saves us from our humdrum existence. It's like getting addicted to soap operas, except the daily crises occur in our lives and the lives of our friends and family.  "Will Ginny leave John?"  "Can we save Herman's job?"  "How will Henrietta survive this dilemma?"

I remember so well the first weekend after I threw Hot Pants out of my life (the first time).  I sat at home going nuts.  There was no drama.  Things were way too quiet.  I ended up calling Southern Helle and telling her, "I've forgotten how to deal with the silence!  I don't know how to enjoy a drama-free night!"

This is the only kind of drama
I want to be addicted to now.

Why do we do it for ourselves?  I think Melody hit a lot of the reasons in the paragraph I quoted.  However, I think some of the stuff that she mentions elsewhere in the book applies too.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that other people's drama makes us interesting.  I often felt like my own life, my own interests, and my own activities were terribly boring to most people.  So getting involved in other people's drama and trying to fix their crises was a way to be "interesting by proxy," if you will.  Sure, I wasn't the major player getting all the attention, but I'd get some of the attention from being the drama queen's supporter and rescuer.

For me, part of learning to break that cycle has been about learning that I can be and even am interesting in my own right.  Rather than wrapping myself around other people's drama, I'm learning to put myself out there more as a funny, interesting, and thoughtful guy with my own ideas, interests and pursuits.  It's still a work in progress for me, but I think there's been a lot of progress.  And I know it's already showing.