Many times after a long night and painful morning, A.A. cofounder Bill Wilson penned remorseful pledges in the family Bible promising he would never drink again. He meant it…until the next night when he would be back at the bar. Addicts have always presented those around them with a frustrating, fascinating and heart-breaking mystery. Why would a man who has everything—an inspired career, a loving wife, and glorious prospects—risk it all for a moment of selfish, short-lived release? Why would someone with everything to lose seem so intent on losing it? This seemingly irrational behavior on the part of very rational men and women is at the heart of addiction—and at the heart of the case of onetime golden boy Anthony Weiner, the New York congressman whose bizarre twitter escapades have dominated the papers and cocktail parties in New York, Washington and even Europe for weeks.
New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is the unexpected addiction mystery of the moment. A career politician who was on track to be mayor of New York, it turned out that the skinny Weiner had tweeted a photo of his suggestively prominent boxer-clad bulge to a flurry of young woman he had befriended on Facebook. When the first picture went viral he hemmed and hawed and insisted his account had been hacked. When the press refused to let up, he acknowledged during a tearful news conference last Monday that he had sent “hundreds” of suggestive photographs and messages to at least six women he had met online, and then repeatedly lied to cover up his actions. He did not deny having had phone sex with some of them. The incidents took place both before and after his recent marriage to Huma Abdin, a notably beautiful close confidant of Hillary Clinton’s. (Ironically, none other than Bill Clinton officiated at the couple’s wedding last July.)
As a result, in less than a week, the unfortunately named representative—his friend Jon Stewart declared a moratarium on “weiner” puns, dismissing them as “too easy”—had descended from representing the stolid citizens New York’s Ninth District to representing the growing epidemic of male sexual idiocy that’s been gripping our nation’s capital of late.
Weinergate, as the press has giddily dubbed the scandal, has the classic symptoms of addictive behavior from the compulsive lies to the abject apologies. But for all the reams of press and clever headlines devoted to the matter, few have noted the possibility that Weiner might not be just a political perv but an undiagnosed sex addict in dire need of treatment.
Even more mysterious than addiction is the public’s failure to understand its power. Certainly Weiner isn’t the only politician to get caught with his pants down (literally and figuratively.) Last year alone over 35 local and national politicians of both parties were embroiled in sex scandals of some kind. Their shamelessness and heedless indiscretions are part of the time-honored spoils of power. (Or so they may claim.) But are all of them addicts? Certainly not. Some are simply old-fashioned adulterers trapped in the glare of the media. But those whose behavior appears both compulsive and inexplicable, where the risks far outweigh the benefits, a diagnosis of sex addiction is a good bet. So why aren’t these men getting help before hitting bottom? There are now many ways to treat addiction; they are not perfect but millions have found them helpful.
Unfortunately, when there is no diagnosis, there can be no treatment. One reporter even hailed Weiner for not hiding behind a story of addiction and heading for rehab—as if to suggest that all addiction was simply media hype. Doubtlessly, there are many who use addiction as an excuse for bad behavior. But Weiner doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy. In fact, when a reporter at Monday’s press conference put the sex addict question directly to him, Weiner responded with yet another evasion, saying, “This is not something that can be treated away. It is a deep weakness of mine, and it is a mistake.” Men who are unable to control their sexual urges at any cost need help, just like drug addicts and alcoholics.
One thing about addiction is not mysterious: Apologies don’t work. Public shaming and reveling in remorse, even when genuine, have no effect on an addict’s relapse. When the need takes over, often almost before even the addict knows it has happened, he has done it again. That’s how addiction feels; that’s how addiction works.
Fiighting addiction is often like playing a maddening game of whack-a-mole. Food addicts who have their stomachs surgically minimized will sometimes turn to drugs and alcohol, just as alcoholics can blunt their alcoholism by abusing sex, food and money. The dopamine rush the addict gets by using—scientists call the addictive brain synapses the hedonistic highway—is more or less the same, whether the substance is gin, smack or twitter.
Unfortunately, despite all the progress we’ve recently made in understanding addictions of different stripes, when it comes to politicians, the American public is not always understanding. A drunken or drugged out politician won’t get too far in today’s world. Even our preternaturally disciplined and controlled current president couldn’t get away with an occasional smoke. And while New Jersey Governor Chris Christie evinces little shame over his addiction to food, he still frequently assures voters that he is constantly dieting. Addiction is a sneaky son of a bitch. It will go where it can grow and thrive.
Sex addiction is one of the few exceptions. The addiction that masquerades as a heightened version of interest in the opposite sex is one of the few that are still relatively acceptable. Of course sex addiction isn’t about loving women any more than rape is about loving women—regardless of what French apologists for Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s recent allegedly brutal sexual assault on a hotel maid are saying—but it’s somehow more acceptable for an American male today to be crazy about women, to be a womanizer, a serial dater or a real playboy, as Weiner famously was, than it is to be a drunk, junkie or fat guy.
At presstime, Weiner’s political future was hanging in the balance. Since the story broke last week, the only consistent line that Weiner has toed iis his desperate determination to keep his congressional seat. But each news cycle reveals more sleazy details about his online sexual adventurism as the women he twittered come forward (often for money) to tell their version of the story. Right-wing activist blogger Andrew Breitbart, who broke the scandal, claims to have X-rated photos of Weiner on tap, and given Weiner’s acknowledgement that such photos may exist, everyone is waiting for this other shoe to drop before writing the congressman’s political obituary. Few fellow Democrats have rallied to his defense, in part because Weiner’s arrogant and self-righteous style has won him few true friends in his own party. The Republicans, who reflexively circled the wagons during the rash of recent sex scandals embroiling GOP congressman, are predictably demanding his resignation—they would like nothing better than to be rid of one of the few liberal attack dogs on Capitol Hill. (But despite all the piling on in the press, no one has suggested an actual incident of intercourse.)
We write and talk about everything these days, it seems. Words that shocked our parents are now commonplace. Subjects that were not mentioned in polite society for centuries are now taught in middle school. Yet when it comes to addiction in general and sex addiction in particular, we seem as reluctant to name it as our grandparents were to talk about sex itself. Is sex addiction our last taboo? What should be the penalty for Weiner’s addiction? Is his uncontrollable sexting strictly a private problem that the public and the press have no business leering at? Does he deserve to remain in the hallowed (if much sullied) halls of Congress? Or ensconced in the same celebrity suite in the Middleboro sex addiction clinic once occupied by Tiger Woods?
