2003-01-11 - 10:20 a.m.

They say that when you have an addiction, you won’t be able to recover until you’ve hit rock bottom.

For me, I think “rock bottom” was just this morning when I woke up and my mouth--like usual--was unbelievably dry. Not only dry but also sour. My stomach felt awful and weird, too--hungry, and yet slightly upset from the abuse of a certain substance. And I had a funny kind of headache.

But I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol the night before.

I did have a hangover, though. The kind that’s so shameful I’m too embarrassed to talk about.

I, my friends, had a movie popcorn hangover.

Last night, El Jefe and I saw “Adaptation,” and I, of course, automatically ordered popcorn when we walked in the door. Even though we had just been out to dinner and I was full as a tic.

I seem to be incapable of going to the movies without buying popcorn; if I try to go without, I’m completely Pavlovian in the theatre, drooling at the guy next to mine’s big box of yellow delight. And then I break down and run back into the lobby to get my own.

Once I do get it, I eat it like I’ve been starved for six months, shoving whole fistfuls in my mouth. That slimy, synthetic, artery-clogging liquid that is in no way related to real butter is, to me, the nectar of the gods.

But, boy oh boy do I pay for it the next day.

Just when I thought I’d reached an age where I’d stopped doing mean things to my body, I go and discover a new way to get hungover. Remember: friends don’t let friends drive home after they’ve gorged themselves on Karasotes corn.

that was then - this is now