Or, you, too, can sort of fit into the world and pay your bills while feeding your demon

  1. Ideally, spread your addictions across multiple modes:  don’t just be an alcoholic or a drug addict. Try food, shopping, sex, binge-watching, porn, or cigarettes as accompaniment.  
  2. Sliver and compartmentalize your life so that colleagues, acquaintances, friends and family members only see two or three of the addictions at once – for instance, the friend with whom you go drinking and smoking or the family member with whom you hit the mall and the ice cream shop or the affair with whom you binge watch porn and smoke after.
  3. When beginning a new job, direct your addictive tendencies toward work – dive deep, over-organize, direct your critical tendencies toward improvement.  If you can establish yourself as an all-in all-star early then you can ride on those laurels just long enough to still have good references as you move to your next gig.
  4. Medicate! Nothing dulls the senses and the need to fill the emptiness like an SSRI.  But the medication won’t entirely curb your needs. You can safely ignore the warnings about drinking while medicated.
  5. Buy a house and settle in. Oh the possibilities, you can feed the urge to re-arrange furniture in multiple rooms on a rotating schedule; or you may destroy and re-build to your heart’s content, or you can launch a successful hoarding habit.
  6. Get a relatively indestructible dog. The slobber and nipping will ensure that you at a bare minimum stay responsible enough to feed it, as well as in all likelihood require that you get out of a bed at a minimum to open the door. It may also help shred the hoarded material. Also, nothing says you’ve got it all together more than stories and pictures of you with your dog at the park. If you aim your selfie right, no one needs to know it’s your backyard.
  7. More controversially, marry. Have kids. There is no guarantee that you won’t destroy their lives, but for some duration family can keep you steady (enough.) The obligation to care, feed, and clothe other people in your abode also provides both incentive and excuse to drink. Some addicts have successfully strung together serial marriages to keep up appearances.
  8. Fall on and off the wagon a few times.  Ideally, sit on the wagon during blood tests and medical examinations if substance abuse is your thing. Or rotate your addictions.  Just when you have gained enough weight from your food and drink addiction, go dry and take up smoking.