A former boss of mine liked to introduce himself as “Howie Mandel.” Brian did actually look a little like the Deal or No Deal host, so the joke cracked me up the first time I heard it. By the fifth time, I was laughing more at Brian than joke. It was, I discovered, one of the many lines Brian seemed to have written and stored, ready to recite under the proper circumstances. In fact, he was a bit lost without them. Once he introduced himself to a new vice president without a single joke, but barely made it through the awkward “good to meet you.”

         Brian was also fond of telling new employees--sometimes even shortly after a first meeting--that he used to be a blistering alcoholic and had been attending Alcoholics Anonymous for four years. He’d launch into the occasional narrative about his messy days of drugs and booze and sleeping through work. And each anecdote would end, almost moralistically, with a sermon about how glad he was to have made this change in his life by diligently following The Steps.

         Maybe it’s because dependence is a fault that’s born through repetition that it can also get to be a little stale or clichéd as a subject. We were diligently anti-cliché in our selections here, trying to stay away from traditional addiction narratives (in love and drugs) in favor of more unusual perspectives on this issue’s subject. Like Brian’s switching dependencies, these stories and poems are wide-ranging, and sometimes surprising. On behalf of our small but spirited editorial team, I hope you enjoy the issue.

    Alex Palmer
    Editor, Fawlt Magazine