I’m old enough to remember a time when Netflix was nothing more than a DVD service. (This probably carbon-dates me even more than remembering a time when YouTube didn’t have pop-up ads.) Back then, very little competed with the thrill of getting those little red and white DVD envelopes. At my alcoholic worst, I used to drunkenly load up our Netflix queue and forget what I’d added in all the same ways I used to order things on Amazon in a blackout. For a while there, Amazon boxes would regularly show up on our doorstep and I’d marvel at all the stuff that would arrive—thoughtful things that only I’d like. Then it’d occur to me that I ordered them. Same thing with Netflix: an entire season of The West Wing would suddenly show up out of the blue and there’d be a real five seconds where I’d go: “Man, who knew I wanted to watch The West Wing?”
My entire life was nothing but screens. All I wanted to do was drink and mentally check out. Some of my emptiest, most bottom-feeding alcoholic moments were sitting in sports bars, pretending to be interested in whatever games were playing on the zillion HDTVs around me. I had no idea what was going on in any of those games, but since I wanted the excuse to drink at noon, I’d sit there and let them wash over me. Just like airport bars at 7 am, no one blinked at me sitting there ordering drinks if I acted like I was interested in a football game. I felt like such a fraud in my day-to-day life, though, that I felt comfortable being a fraud in sports bars. (I’d occasionally have to act the part of Sports Fan, so I’d have to high-five the dude sitting next to me if Sports Team scored a goal, but it was a small price to pay.) Most of the time I just sat there and played around on my iPhone.
When I first got sober, my addiction to screens somehow got worse. I’d love to say that in those first few months of sobriety I focused on my family. Not even close. I lived in the blue glow of my computer screen: Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and CNN. I’d go down insane Wikipedia rabbit holes for hours at a time. I filled up our DVR with so many shows that at some point, I had to delete more than I could watch. Back then, I had such live-wire anxiety that the only thing that quelled any of it was instant gratification. None of it was enough.
Enter my old friend Netflix.
Netflix was like a college friend who I hadn’t seen in a decade and had, in the interim, he had figured out how to live life right. He’d lost 30 pounds, got a high-paying job and had a newfound swagger. I can’t think of anything more appealing to my alcoholic brain than Netflix. (Except maybe Spotify.) Entire TV series just sat there—vast swaths of seasons waiting for me. Netflix appealed to everything I loved in life: New episodes of Arrested Development? Check. All of The X-Files? Double-check. I didn’t have to wait for anything to arrive at my doorstep.
Before I knew it, I was throwing away more time on old episodes of Cheers and Deep Space Nine than I did in sports bars. I’d look up and four hours had gone by. Then, at a certain point, I was skipping through episodes of Fringe and finding just the parts I wanted to watch. The idea of sitting there and watching 45 minutes of anything was absurd. I’d just jump to moments. In fact, it was exactly how I was living my life as a drunk: short-cutting and browsing and skipping and taking only the parts I wanted. And Netflix just kept churning out the distractions: Black Mirror, Bloodline, Stranger Things, Wet Hot American Summer. It suddenly dawned on me that Netflix was like those sports bars I used to hang out in with 200 beers on tap. I was paralyzed with possibility. I’d spend a good 15 minutes just clicking through the endless pages of things I could vanish into.
I’d also love to say that I cut ties with Netflix long ago when I identified my compulsion, but…no. It was only recently that I realized I had to part ways with it. I was so addicted to Netflix that I was watching it on the way home from work in the car. I don’t know how many episodes of Alias almost got me into a fender bender with my iPhone perched on the speedometer. I literally had to taper down from Netflix—one show at a time, like coming off a drug. I was, too often, going to that blank, empty place my brain used to go in those sports bars. When I’d see the black screen and the red Netflix logo fade in, it had an almost narcotic effect on me. We’ve since cut our cable and I’ve had to go as far as to delete the shortcut in my browser so it wasn’t a mindless link to go to. Netflix was designed by addicts for addicts. It has to have been. There’s no other explanation.
My children are never going to know the sweet agony of having to wait for things. Back in the mid-’80s, I very distinctly remember being #33 on the library’s list for their single VHS copy of Star Wars. When it arrived, months later, I savored it. I even studied the label—the blue lettering of the title is still burned into my brain. Thanks to Netflix, my patience and attention span have eroded to the point where if something buffers for more than a few seconds, I jump to something else. Because my inner addict needs to be fed, it’s all too easy for me to go to that soulless, empty place where I’m watching something just for the sake of watching it. For decades as an alcoholic, that’s how I lived my life: watching it all unfold around me, playing out with no sense of what was happening or why. Netflix is one of those reminders that I have to be plugged into the present, not plugged into Season five of MacGyver.
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