I never kept my cocaine use a secret. Most of Hollywood—certainly everyone who’d run into me after sunset—knew me as “a good time.” Someone who might have a bump on him or, at the very least, know where to score. Someone who was down. Of this, I was sort of perversely proud.

A friend, replying to an industry party that had deemed Evite an appropriate method of invitation, wrote, “I’ll come as long as Hurvitz promises to wipe his nose when he leaves the bathroom.” It was supposed to be a joke. But as the Evite circulated around town, I found it less funny. Eventually, I had to awkwardly call the host (a man I barely knew) and ask him to remove my friend’s reply. He agreed to remove it but added, “It’s not like it’s news.” Ouch.

I simply never saw the need to humor the establishment by living a lie. I did cocaine. I didn’t see it as a defining characteristic. More like a hobby. A sort of stamp collecting for the sinuses.

And why hide? I was successful, absolutely trustworthy, producing a half-hour network television show while writing music video concepts for some of L.A.’s most respected directors. Always on time, often under budget. Young and outgoing, frequently smiling and upbeat, I was a Hollywood boss’s wet dream: responsible enough to get the job done and young enough to produce for pennies.

And, really, who in Hollywood doesn’t have a drug problem? For every celebrity who has admitted to a drug problem, there are 20 more who count on their drug dealers to get a film, video or commercial finished. Though it’s common to thank G-d on the podium, many award winners should probably acknowledge the man-made sciences of chemistry and horticulture.

Cocaine was in no way a barrier to success; it was the fuel on which the industry ran. Seeking to prove this, I was especially pleased when I found myself among the town’s best and brightest, patting my hip pocket with a smile. (I first considered that I might have a problem when I refused to purchase a pair of jeans because they lacked such a pocket.) Surrounded by the sort of talent and drive that allowed these few artists to succeed in a town of thousands trying and failing, I felt safe.

I had, as they say, arrived—with friends waiting at the gate and cargo in tow. Benjamin Full of Grace.

But after only seven years in the business, I witnessed many of these Hollywood greats fall and a few of them die. More often, though, they’re just gently phased out of importance. Deemed “difficult” after their very first misfire, the phone just stops ringing.

For me, it was a little different. Drunk for countless consecutive nights and having already consumed three grams of coke at 5 a.m. one Sunday, my damaged nose on fire, I decided the only way I’d feel any relief was to smoke some crystal. At the time, these were the sort of brilliant ideas I could count on producing. An hour later, some 40-year-old guy was in my apartment, holding a crack pipe in one hand and his dick in the other. I excused myself to make a drink. And broke down in the kitchen.

Image by Aaron Reed

It occurred to me that I was officially no longer surrounded by the best and brightest.

I also realized—while standing there in the kitchen, pouring vodka from the bottle into its cap for efficiency’s sake—that I hadn’t had an original thought in months. The one thing I’ve always known, even in the worst of times, is that I am a writer. But standing there in the kitchen, I realized I hadn’t written anything in a long time. And that was how I finally hit bottom.

The man in the other room, half-erect and waiting patiently for my return, would just have to go home.

Sobriety. It has the heavy hush of a clinical word, like molestation. It doesn’t sound like a good time. It’s something discussed with one’s therapist, in small healing groups, in recovery centers.

Unlike my alcohol and drug use, I typically keep my sobriety a secret. My friends have no problem regaling one another with tales of candy-flipping, K-kations to other planets or speed-fueled sexcapades initiated at the sight of a chain-link fence. But they have little to say about a night spent clean.

The few times I have explained my sobriety—to colleagues, to writing partners or producers, even to old bosses with addictive personalities of their own—have been unqualified disasters. Each time, I’ve been met with an exacting, open-mouthed stare, a dissection, and then waited through the cold storm of insincerely positive thought-forming. I can feel them manufacturing the words as they think: Say something non-judgmental! Empathize but
keep it sunny!

“You’re going to get so skinny!” That’s my favorite so far. Said almost jealously, it so perfectly encapsulates the Hollywood response to everything. You’ve got cancer? Well, you’ve always wanted to change your hair! In Los Angeles—city of fitness and health by way mostly of teeth whitening and the lunchtime facial—everything negative is spun into wheatgrass. “I’m so proud of you,” an old drinking buddy enthused. “Your skin is going to clear right up.”

No doubt about it, revealing my sobriety suggests that I’ve become somehow different than my peers. It dismantles the façade that used to surround my problem. It’s as though I wasn’t an addict—up for judgment or dismissal—until I stopped my behavior cold. And named it.

Sobriety. It’s not the first secret I’ve kept in my young life. After all, I’m gay—and I kept my sexual orientation secret for years. Lately I’m beginning to see a connection between the two.

Alcoholism is generally accepted as a genetic predisposition. Though we’re born susceptible to it, the thinking goes that an alcoholic need never take his first drink. If we avoid “problem drinking” (the definition there is a little hazy), our genetic predisposition remains dormant. You can live your whole life as an alcoholic and never even know it! How comforting.

The same seems true of being gay. The more research that’s done on the earlobes of lesbian women and their straight counterparts, the more apparent it is that homosexuality also has its basis in genetics. And just as one never need take his first drink, he need not suck his first cock. But try mentioning this atop the float at your next Gay Pride Parade: There’s little difference between alcoholism and homosexuality.

Gay men and women will surely bristle at this idea, preferring not to share space in the public consciousness with what people consider a disease. But we’re responsible for what we label disease. In the 17th century, the first time “gay” was used in sexual terms, it meant “addiction to pleasures.” When homosexuality was reclassified in the DSM-II (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the psychiatrist’s handbook) did the nature of it change?

No, only our perception of it.

Track the labels given to homosexuality over the past decades: aberration, perversion, disease, mental-heath disorder, acceptable lifestyle, identity. These are little more than era-specific social constructs used to describe the same exact same thing.

I was, in my youth, a latent addict and homosexual. Over time, I’ve come to accept both. But whereas I was encouraged to embrace my homosexuality by a supportive, nurturing network of older and wiser gays and lesbians, no such structure exists for the alcoholic.

Certainly, there are groups, Alcoholics Anonymous among them, that encourage the alcoholic to understand and even embrace his disease. But there is no group that encourages the alcoholic to embrace his identity, let alone take pride in it.

Consider this bit of history: Only 40 years before gays fought to have homosexuality declassified as a mental disorder, the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s had drunks fighting to label alcoholism as a disease. Gays wanted out of the disease game; alcoholics wanted in. Gays didn’t want to be cured, but alcoholics did—understandably. They were suffering, many in late stages of poor health. (Notably, the alcoholism movement would come to accept there was no “cure” for the alcoholic.)

While society has since become more tolerant of homosexuality as a lifestyle, addicts are still being stigmatized and ushered into recovery. If you feel the least amount of sadness for the closeted gay man, you might feel the same for the alcoholic who keeps drinking, banging his head against the wall.

And so here we make the next obvious logical jump: As we demand that society accept homosexuals (though legislation and social justice), we should demand that society accept the alcoholic. Progressive community member: Hug your drunk! He’s only acting as he was made to act!

In an age where we’re rightfully encouraged not only to discover our multiple identities but also to celebrate them, a notable few seem somehow left out of the shuffle, addiction among them.

I’m hard pressed to name any others that are so forcefully kept secret. Race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, sex—we’re taught to embrace each of these. The face of progression even has us parsing these basic categories such that the biracial, multi-spiritual, differently abled transsexuals among us feel well represented in any legal or moral discussion. It seems nearly anything we’re born with (and even, arguably, a few we aren’t, such as weight) are legislated and protected within an inch of their lives, and rightfully so.

Yet no one considers standing up for the rights of the sober, let alone of the alcoholic. It seems alcoholism may be the last great taboo, society’s best kept secret. And if you think there’s no tangible discrimination against alcoholics—well, try mentioning it in a job interview.

Think of how broad-based acceptance of alcoholism could change our view of mental health. It took decades for mental health professionals to view homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle and focus on their patient’s actual problems—but, once they did, it presumably freed up therapists and their gay patients to address other concerns. What if we treated alcoholism as we do homosexuality: not as something to be fixed but something to celebrate? Let’s start by dropping the “ism.” I propose we start calling it alcoholity.

Can you imagine a world where a young man could approach his parents before developing a life-altering, expensive and destructive habit? “Mom, Dad, I can tell I’m different. Like, I was at this party the other night and Bobby had half a beer and I drank 10 gin and tonics. I think I’m an alcoholic!”

Why must he wait until he develops a problem to identify this very real, genetic aspect of himself? For shame?

Parents who know of an alcoholic tendency in the family—as mine did—often caution their children not to drink without saying exactly why. That’s because Uncle Joe’s alcoholism is a kind of shameful scandal, a family secret hidden and, therefore, doomed to repeat. As a friend recently told me: “I didn’t want to end up like my dad, a drunk. The thing is, he didn’t want to end up like his father either. Then one day I looked down and I was wearing cut-off jean shorts and holding a Budweiser between my knees while driving and I thought, ‘Well, dad used to drink Coors.’”

If we’re ashamed that our children might be alcoholics, it’s only because we haven’t created a society that would welcome them.

But what if we embraced kids with a genetic propensity for alcoholity? What if we encouraged them to seek out other likeminded youth through state-sponsored youth groups? Fuck it, what if we gave the young alcoholic a booth at the Diversity Lunch Buffets in suburban school districts? Could they then become more positively self-actualized? Your gay friend can help you choose an outfit. Maybe there are times you should rely only upon your drunk.

Let there one day be a self-identifying addict on every bad sitcom, someone pundits will count as evidence of diversification and minority representation on television. Only then will I be happy.

I spent a lot of money, time and effort chasing my addictions. Ultimately, I stopped drinking not because of a DUI or a tragic accident but because I was so far off course that I couldn’t write clearly anymore. (You can argue this is still the case.) Is it possible that the same part of me that drove me to chase dragons is also the part that hungers for a perfect turn of phrase?

In many ways, it boils down to a lust for life. I want it now and I want it perfect and I want to share it with you, too. And I wouldn’t want to lose that for the world.

And so, as I am proudly a writer, proudly gay, proud of all that makes me unique, I am proud of being an alcoholic. In fact, I wouldn’t have it any other way. So don’t bother with the forced smiles and pity when I decline a drink. After all, no matter how lovely she looks, if you offered me the chance, I also wouldn’t fuck your girl.