In this age of spiked cigarettes, boozy cough syrups and jazzed java joints, it's not unheard of for someone to admit an addiction to any one particular substance. I don't know what I would do if the Food and Drug Administration ever classified lip balm as an illegal substance. This nightmare scenario undoubtedly would force me to smuggle this lip elixir out of Switzerland and into the United States by freeze-drying it into a powder and then concealing it in condoms or Swiss Miss hot chocolate packets. The participants were third-tier media celebrities and a glamorous international circus star, but it could have been just ordinary lumpy people like you and your friend Ed. Addiction knows no name, no country, no special waiting areas in Third World airports.
Addiction can happen to men and women and writers alike.
Addiction is no respecter of class, money, wit, style, fabulous long swooping scarves or the ability to catch oneself by one's heels while swinging 20 feet in the air. It's a terrible thing, addiction. It was my younger daughter who broke through the cycle of denial. She started an intervention, although at the time it sounded like a peevish comment. We were all sitting on a low wall in Luxor.