Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette has been open about her struggles with addiction for years and warns that workaholism is the most dangerous.
"Addiction is the search for relief that eventually kills you," she gave her definition in an interview with the British Guardian.
Work, sex, love, shopping – she was addicted to all of them, she admits. She describes them as a game of "whack a mole" – as soon as you deal with one, another one pops up. She says work addiction is especially difficult.
"If I said, 'I was doing heroin until four in the morning and passed out,' people would say, 'Oh, no, she needs help.' But if I said, 'I worked like a horse to finish everything on time and finished at 4:15 in the morning,' everyone would pat me on the back and say, 'Well done, queen.' And both are equally destructive. Any addiction, if you don't stop it, kills you. The first 20 minutes are great, but then after that you die," said the singer-songwriter known for hits such as "You Oughta Know," "Ironic," and "Hand in My Pocket."
She admitted that she often had suicidal thoughts.
"Was I suicidal? All the time. I still struggle with it today. I have an anxiety-depressive trait. Sensitive people are much more sensitive to information from their environment. If you put such a person in an environment where they are belittled or suppressed - they will want to die. That is terrible. If, on the other hand, you support them, listen to them and empower them - they will flourish," she believes.
For sensitive people, she says, environment is key. The environment she found herself in at the beginning of her career was not very kind to her, the musician says. After high school, she learned to play the guitar and began writing songs. At 19, she moved to Los Angeles, where she spent her days on the beach writing songs, in a culture where, as she says, "no one asks you questions, just write, write, write."
Music became her outlet. Her lyrics were "psychologically, spiritually and emotionally charged." She was soon signed to Madonna's Maverick label, and the album "Jagged Little Pill" was released when she was 21 - selling half a million copies in just one week. This year, the album celebrates three decades since its release.
"It was a tough time to be a solo artist. You had no one to hide behind. In that beautiful patriarchy, if men couldn't have sex with me – they didn't know what else to do with me," she recalls.
As she watched the scene around her, it seemed to her that only those women who were loud and unapologetic, like Courtney Love, were succeeding.
"I thought, 'Okay, I'll pretend to be an extrovert for the next 25 years.' Then tequila, anything that made me more fun. If I'm giving a speech - Xanax. Anything that helps me become something I'm not," the musician said.
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