He Was Asking For It: Johnny Depp and Alcoholic Resentment
Notes on Captain Jack Squat
It’s impossible for me not to empathize with Johnny Depp.
He testified under oath he was addicted to opioids. So was I. It’s hellish.
And for the record, I should mention I met him in the late 1980s. He was visiting a mutual friend in New York, and she introduced us at a nightclub in downtown Manhattan where I worked.
I didn’t have a television and never watched 21 Jump Street, which made him famous. This was before Edward Scissorhands and my personal favorite of his works, Benny and Joon.
What a beautiful man. He wore a navy-blue brocade smoking jacket, as I remember. He had good manners, almost shy, gazing up at me with doe eyes. Those eyes let me know he was kind, respectful, and intelligent.
I felt no attraction to him. There was warmth, but no heat.
I wasn’t into Hollywood. I preferred disastrous men who were at least willing to be present and accounted for. He seemed to be acting even as we shook hands. He played the “I’m just a nice guy” part.
Our mutual friend was a junkie. Johnny Depp and I have that in common, too. Our taste in friends.
Remembering this brief encounter over 30 years ago, it’s painful to see Netflix’s new series Depp vs. Heard. Viewing it made me wistful for a root canal.
I had to watch in small doses. In no universe should I be sticking my nose into a trial held in Virginia with themes of sexual assault. It’s like ordering a nervous breakdown for dinner. But I forged on, and I’m glad. I discovered how much he and I have in common.
If you’ve miraculously missed the defamation trial Depp won against his ex-wife Amber Heard, please congratulate yourself. It was a viral sensation which brought out the very worst of everyone.
Writing about it is a terrible idea. But I just can’t help it.
Context is important here. I write about addiction and attempt to bridge the gap of understanding between addicts and the rest of the population. It would be unfair of me not to also bring up the side effects, which may include hurting people.
Deconstructing the subject is the task of Sisyphus. Addiction is a disease. Our behavior can be horrifying. Both things are true. People with the misfortune of loving us suffer terribly.
Depp has gifted us with such a stunning example of the paradox. He managed not just to hurt himself and his ex-wife, but all women. Let’s hear it for star power.
Addicts rally for themselves like no other people on earth. We defend our right to drink and get high and whatever else we please, because we’re in pain. It’s our life, damnit, and if we’re ruining yours, get out. Our pain trumps yours every time. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Barring true psychopaths, we can be the most conniving and brutal people on earth. Nothing gets between us and our next drink, fix, pill. You’re supposed to love us as we are. You’re supposed to say things like,
I love you. Of course you need thirty bags of heroin a day, and here’s $2 thousand dollars a week to buy it. Let me dissolve another of my 401Ks for you.
The above is an actual thought of mine. It was a recurring one, and it was directed at my husband.
I spent hours, days, and weeks blaming him for not giving me enough money to support my habit. I resented having to ask him for money. He should know I needed it. If he loved me, he’d willingly hand over every cent he’d worked for since he was fifteen years old so I could have peace of mind.
Peace of mind meant opioids. In my mind, I didn’t have a heroin problem, I had a financial problem. This was most unfortunate, as I was in no condition to work.
To make matters even more insufferable, I was an artist. And sensitive. Lucky him.
It’s fortunate he has such a good sense of humor. I can still pull some version of this bullshit, even though the heroin is long gone. He just laughs at me now, and usually I find myself laughing with him. We find my entitlement issues amusing.
Most of the time.
I should emphasize the now part. If he’d laughed at me when I was actively using, I would have plotted his demise.
Anyone who dares question what we’re doing becomes our mortal enemy, even if they love us. We don’t want your stinking love, just get out of our way. But hand over your wallet first.
I tend to use the terms alcoholism and addiction interchangeably. This makes some people cranky, because they’re high and mighty with their Budweisers and think they’d never drop so low as to pick up something as terrible as heroin.
I used to be one of those people. Not anymore.
Although you might not be aware of knowing an addict, anyone would be hard pressed not to know an alcoholic.
Resentment is our rocket fuel. We can’t drink without it.
“I wouldn’t have to drink if they…”
“If you had my life you’d drink too!”
“Look what you made me do.”
There are a couple of jokes in recovery circles that are worth mentioning:
1) What does an alcoholic always need? Someone to blame.
2) What do you need to start a meeting? A resentment and a coffee pot.
The people who love us aren’t always well, either. The disease is contagious. It can sicken family members because trying to change us changes them. It can hijack their brain, just like an opioid can hijack mine.
Cue Amber Heard, who made the fatal flaw common to anyone who ever loved an alcoholic. She thought she could save Depp.
If we love the person enough, they will change into who we need, and everything will finally be fixed: if we can change our partner, we can change our childhood.
It all goes back to the parents who never loved us enough because they were too busy drinking, working, gambling, raging, using, cheating. If we search for the next mommy or daddy (there’s an endless supply available) and love them enough, we will finally know unconditional love ourselves.
It’s more exhausting than it even sounds.
But how addiction and its attendant horrors manifested in the lives of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is information none of us should have. Depp vs. Heard—the trial, not the series—was about something else.
Almost everyone lost the plot. It became about who was more believable, who was more likeable. It should come as no surprise the jury and world decided Amber Heard was the failure in the relationship.
The suit brought against her was whether she had the right to make these statements, in an Op-ed published by The Washington Post:
(1) “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” (2) “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” (3) “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
What happened next is called irony. But irony is supposed to be humorous, not life-threatening. The article she wrote about speaking up instigated a lawsuit against her for speaking up. Then all of Johnny Depp’s fans blamed her for the lawsuit he instigated.
Heard didn’t name Depp in the piece. She referenced “men accused of abuse,” not abusers. As her lawyer pointed out, Depp didn’t sue The Washington Post. I’ve been published by the Post, and I assure you—their legal team cleared her essay.
This trial was never about defamation. Depp defamed himself. He sued her because he needed someone to blame for what he’d made of his life, and his resentment knows no limit. As a result, his ego remains intact, held together by the scotch tape of his rabid fans’ affection.
I say fuck Johnny Depp and the pirate ship he rode in on.
I may be like him in some respects, but there are differences. I’m not one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, there is no Disney ride based on my franchise, and I don’t have a security team on my payroll. For the record, I have no payroll.
Another difference is I own my behavior. All of it. You will never hear me say any of the following:
It wasn’t me. It was the drugs. I’m a good person. That was someone else.
There are things I did in active addiction which I probably wouldn’t do now. But I don’t think a poltergeist overtook me. I’m responsible for what I’ve done.
I certainly will not make any pronouncements to the world about my character. Nor would I ask friends, relatives, and those on my non-existent payroll to do so on my behalf. I wouldn’t put them in the position.
I’m a person. I don’t need friendly adjectives. Denial is never my friend.
When I was active, I went to a neurologist because I was having “memory” problems. Please note, I hate going to doctors. But I’d rather believe I had early onset Alzheimer’s than face the truth about myself, which was I was so high I couldn’t remember my own life.
My memory is fine. My problem was blacking out from the amount of Roxicodone I was taking. Before there was heroin, in the golden age of #FullSackler, there were endless Roxicodone.
Now wouldn’t you know, Roxicodone is the same drug which gave Johnny Depp trouble. And it’s entirely possible he doesn’t remember any bad behavior and can only remember the good he’s done.
But if you add tens of millions of dollars, a movie franchise, and a lot of power to a Roxicodone habit, what do you have?
Ladies and gentlemen, you have Captain Jack Squat himself: Johnny Depp.
Addicts and alcoholics usually have to bottom out on their behavior to change. This can be difficult when you’re rich and surrounded by sycophants.
But I promise you, Depp has moments when he knows what he is. It’s somewhere in between when he wakes up, and when he puts on his hat.
I was inspired to write about him from one scene submitted as video evidence in the trial. Heard recorded him as he was in a rage one morning, slamming glass cupboards and drinking red wine.
It’s very common to confront alcoholics with evidence of their behavior. She is not the first person on earth to record a spouse or take their picture when they’re nodding out or in a rage. She wanted proof to break through his denial.
He’s the most stunning train wreck of insecurity I’ve ever seen. He’s wearing one of those dumb neo-cowboy hats, a hat I could imagine Kid Rock wearing, in his own home. He got dressed and put this hat on his head and checked the mirror. His only audience is his wife.
Can you imagine needing that hat to face the day? He’s wearing it to look cool in his own home.
Anyone who feels the need to play dress up while day drinking engenders pity in me. It’s a terrible state of spirit and a painful thing to watch.
And not for nothing, the men’s rights groups so obsessed with Depp might have better luck defending the guy with the Viking hat from January 6th. If you’re going to defend men who play dress up and do awful things, the Viking had a better costume.
How does this video preserve Depp’s “good name?” How could Heard tarnish him when we can all see for ourselves?
I don’t know Amber Heard, and the brief interaction I had with Depp is the extent of my knowledge of him outside of the trial. I don’t know who is telling the truth when either of them speaks and I never will.
But I understand addiction, and it’s usually only when the booze or drugs stop working that we’re ready to get help. It can take a long time to get to this point. It can go on forever if you have enough money, and as the t-shirt says,
Johnny Depp has money. When Amber Heard called him out on his behavior, it must have been quite a shock. When you’re surrounded by ass kissers, the truth sounds outrageous.
This seems to be a national theme. It’s eerily reminiscent of someone else we all know, another man who blames everyone but himself, another guy whose ego will always be his priority.
They’re both vindictive men.
Sometimes getting clean and sober is a public service. If Depp gets sober again, wonderful. But the pain I feel in watching Depp vs. Heard is not for him.
I feel sad that in his spectacular, self-instigated decline, he destroyed not only one woman’s life, but sabotaged every other woman who needs to speak up. I feel sad misogyny is so prevalent in our society. I feel sad people would rather keep their fantasies of him alive than face the truth.
I feel sad all the pity engendered for poor, addicted Johnny Depp doesn’t get translated into support for addicts who don’t own private islands and don’t have millions in the bank.
I feel terribly sad some abused women sided with Depp. It’s heartbreaking. Heard was castigated in a letter from a survivor’s group because of audio admitting she hit him.
I know a woman who spent well over a decade in prison for murdering her partner. She’d suffered years of abuse at his hands, and finally killed him. His murder doesn’t mean she didn’t suffer at his hands. If she were to write an Op-ed about her experience, should she be under legal threat if she mentions she was abused for years?
That’s the standard some have applied to Amber Heard. Only perfect survivors need apply, even though statistics overwhelmingly prove women are more likely to die in domestic violence incidents.
The outcome of this trial let us know exactly how much hatred is directed at women, even by women themselves. It let us know what happens when we try and claim our own experience by speaking up. It let us know the courts still rule we belong to men.
And if there is a woman in the vicinity of a male jackass, she will be blamed for his behavior.
If Johnny Depp were reliable, non-violent, safe, easy to work with and insure; if Amber Heard were just running her mouth so she could get rich off their marriage, this would be a different story.
It would be a story we never heard. His life would speak for itself, and he’d have no need to court this kind of microscopic attention to his private life.
But it’s not the story. We’re stuck with this one. He made sure of it.
From where I sit, there is only one point: Depp was willing to have the public roll around in the “human fecal matter” of his life rather than accept responsibility for himself.
By suing her, he somehow managed to defame himself, blame her, and get away with it. Every bit of sordid was his own creation. He asked for it.