Love/Addiction/Grey Matter

Debora Cahn on "Love/Addiction"...

Addiction. Who doesn’t love a good addiction? I know I do. You try something. You like it. You try it again. You build a little ritual around it, make it a special part of your day. You tell time by it. “Must be noon, cause I’m jonesing for another cup of my special English tea!” or  “I know it’s morning cause I’m awake and ready for a hit of crystal meth!”

DON’T DO METH, KIDS.

See, here’s the thing: anything can be addictive. And it’s not always easy to spot when something slips down that slippery slope from experiment to habit to addiction. Derek and Meredith thought they’d ended it. Cold turkey. White knuckle. Over. So over. Well, it wasn’t totally over. There was a bit of a hang-over. A little no-strings-attached sex. Just for old times sake. No harm, no foul. But the thing is, there is harm. Derek doesn’t like it. He wants to talk. He wants to sleep over. He wants lunch, with the woman he loved, or loves, or has some impossible to define love related interaction with. He’s settling for just the sex, cause that’s all she’s willing to indulge. But that’s only hurting him. It’s just enough of the drug to keep him hooked. Never enough to satisfy him, only enough to make him want more. And he knows. He knows he’s got a problem, but he can’t walk away.

Love. It’s like crystal meth.

DON’T DO METH.

Even Callie’s strung out. Callie, who always seemed stronger than the rest of them. More together. Less at the mercy of her emotions. Sure, George’s on-again, off-again interest, his loosey goosey commitment made her kind of nuts, but she always seemed like she was handling it. Now she’s walking around the hospital like a crazy person. Falling down on the job, which she NEVER does. Unable to concentrate on anything other than the sneaking suspicion that her husband’s having an affair. She knows it, in her heart she can’t deny it. But she can’t face it either. She’s in a marriage that’s destroying her, and her husband’s about to come clean and maybe put them both out of their misery, but she can’t let him do it. She can’t let him say it. She’d rather be a strung out junkie than deal with the pain of withdrawal.

That’s a pretty serious drug.

BUT NOT AS SERIOUS AS CRYSTAL METH, WHICH YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T DO.

I watched this documentary on crystal meth. The fabulous Stacy McKee saw this documentary called “Montana Meth” right when we were starting to put together this story, and she told me to watch it, and EEEEW. Meth is a nasty drug, and it makes you do nasty, gnarly things, like trade sex with people who don’t shower for a hit that doesn’t even make you feel good, and all sorts of other things that I don’t even want to get into. I watched it with my 15 year-old niece, figured I’d do a little, “I’m your cool aunt and I’ll show you this documentary on meth and scare you away from drugs” and I’m a little worried that I traumatized her for life. Meth is foul. Don’t do meth.

And don’t get into relationships with people who can’t handle them. Don’t you just want to shake Derek and Callie? Don’t you want to shake them and say, “These people keep telling you they can’t give you what you want – believe them!” But shaking them wouldn’t help. Because they’re addicted. They can’t walk away even when they want to.

Maybe it’s okay. Maybe you can’t avoid addiction, all you can do is pick your poison. Special English tea is better than meth, and love’s better than special English tea. It may put you through the ringer sometimes, but when it’s good, it’s really really good. Worth coming back to, time and time again. Worth getting hooked on.