You Are Secretariat: An Addict's Memoir to Bojack Horseman

SPOILERS FOR BOJACK HORSEMAN

 Bojack Horseman has been finished for some years now, but its grapple with the topic of addiction and intergenerational trauma is just as poignant as its every season's release. Its dark themes have given me a few years before I could brave it again, as I originally was in a difficult place mentally when I watched it and it helped me spiral further. But having grown some years, I realise this is the unique power of the show Bojack Horseman to help you reflect on your own actions. It is not a show to self-pity, as I originally did. I have a sad string of texts from years ago where I K-holed alone in my bedroom to the Bojack theme song, with some gibberish alongside a single text saying "I'm bojack". Having matured, the gut punches delivered by this show have helped me with self-insights about responsibility, addiction and trauma.

First: I must talk about how this show is my favourite show of all time. One thing I admire most about Bojack Horseman is how the foreshadowing begins from the very first intro, with the added detail of an astute and witty self-portrait hung in his study - as a Bojack-like figure drowns in the pool, he peers over himself. Later comments are made on the pop-art portrayal of the Narcissus myth, pointing out Bojack's narcissistic tendencies that are rooted in shame, self-hatred and a need for validation. Equally this serves as foreshadowing for the ending. I want to give a moment to this show for its tremendous Breaking Bad-like foreshadowing and its clear vision from the very beginning, hooking you in with a satirical colourful world filled with zoological puns and pop culture parodies before taking you down a dark, navel-gazing path.

Back to the opinion piece. Throughout Bojack, we stop rooting for him as he does worse and worse things. At first he is satirically terrible to the point of laughter, but we learn as the show develops its plot that it goes beyond satire, with Bojack having a pattern of treating others like shit - often due to his addictions. His addictions lie beyond alcohol and drugs. As someone who has wrangled with addiction, the magazine cover promo he suggests for Secretariat - a mirror image on the front that reflects the reader's face, with the accompanied text You Are Secretariat - resonated with me.

Secretariat was a hero of Bojack's, but ended his own life after bargaining with president Nixon to draft his brother into the Vietnam war instead of himself, where his brother lost his life. Why this fictional ad promo resonated with me so deeply was because it represented facing yourself after having done insidious selfish things you can't take back - facing yourself after the consequences of your actions have damaged or destroyed someone's life.

A lot of these actions stem from addictions. Again not just alcohol and drugs, but validation, attention-seeking, power, emotional highs and lows, control; also more secretive ones such as kleptomania, eating disorders, other self-harming behaviours. All of these are addictions and yet where other shows seem to miss the mark and show the rush as the reason, Bojack hits the nail on the head and shows that the endless void of the addict is what motivates their actions. The feeling of being unfixable, needing something to fill your emptiness, the feeling of not being a whole person unless you add or subtract something from yourself, unless you represent yourself a certain way, unless you keep getting what you need to fill that void.

And Bojack takes it further. The feeling of being lost within yourself is one that can cause you to burn bridges with the people you love the most, through codependency or pushing them away. The defensiveness of nothing being wrong with you - the addiction is actually GOOD for you because it makes you feel like yourself. You're better with your addiction. Your addiction makes others like you better because it takes away those pesky issues you can't face. These are themes that no other TV shows dare to uncover. 

Then we see the loss of control. We see him going from a handful of pills, casual drinking, over-partying, working as a functional addict - to leveraging a bottle a day as "harm reduction" as he takes handfuls of opiates alongside it (which is incredibly dangerous and shows how little regard you have for your safety in active addiction). The high is gone, he is chasing that feeling of escaping himself and nothing can bring it back. We see him enter withdrawals when his sister Hollyhock throws his pills down the drain and he spends the entire day trying to track down more opiates with increased intensity, scaring his sister more and more until he gets her into a downright dangerous situation. 

We do see a difference between sober Bojack and active addiction Bojack. Bojack in active addiction is almost loveably sardonic, sociable, confident, energetic - all the things he wants to be. But he hurts the ones he loves almost pathologically. The price he pays for feeling okay is to push everyone further away, where he will just spiral further into himself with the chaos he causes as he loses himself. After a second climax in his addiction, he can no longer admit he is in control. He has to change.

Sober Bojack still carries all that emotional weight - he is more lethargic, perhaps more pessimistic, less ambitious, but he accepts the responsibility of the fucked up things he has done to ruin his life and burn his bridges. He is calmer, though probably just as empty as before. Sobriety doesn't fix everything. All sobriety fixes is your ability to control the things in your life that you have the power to. He doesn't make a comeback as a happy-go-lucky Mr Peanutbutter type. He is just as miserable, with wake up call after wake up call and endless frustration about the consequences of active addiction Bojack. He is sober now - he is different, he has changed!! Why is he still held responsible for the things he did while in active addiction? It feels almost unfair, especially to the addict who can watch and relate probably thinking "But I wasn't in control when I did these things and it's not fair I have to bear the consequences for something it feels like I didn't do!" But you do, and that's the pain of seeing yourself mirrored in Bojack (or Secretariat). In sobriety, you just have to deal with the shit you've done.

Sobriety is painful - living with yourself is painful. But Bojack Horseman shows that active addiction is just as painful, you just fuck up more. Sobriety does not fix the underlying void. You have to do that yourself. As he parodies the lucrative rehab business model, he says "I came here to take responsibility for myself, and all I keep hearing is that it's not your fault, you're powerless over your addiction!" Having been to meetings myself, I found this incredibly alienating. The mood is drab, people are sharing the horrific things they have done in addiction, every day you are thinking about your addiction (it helps some, but again referencing Bojack... "Why 12 steps? That's way too many. Nobody wants to do 12 of anything"). I disagree with powerlessness over addiction, as Bojack mentions. How can you truly recover if you admit something else holds all the power over you and you just have to take it? How can you be in control of your own sobriety if you are told it controls you? (I have very strong feelings about NA being cultish which I know a lot of addicts share, but if it helps you more power to you! Or less, lol)

 In prison, Bojack volunteers with theatre and plans to keep it up after his release. It keeps him distracted, and in my opinion this is the most important way to stay sober or in active recovery. Fill the void with better things. Therapy is best if you can afford it, but if all you can do is run, run with the things that help you and others. Run from yourself by distracting yourself with other things. Take in nature, volunteer, replace your addictions with something productive. Anything to outrun the thoughts screaming your easy fix - eventually, they can't catch up to you. (Important to mention though: slips do tend to happen in recovery.)

"You Are Secretariat" is a reminder that the hurt you have caused others is ultimately your responsibility to resolve, and no amount of hiding your shameful past or filling the void with quick fixes will help you get past that pain. Sobriety doesn't fix anything, but it does lay down the foundation to fix the things you have done and begin somewhere new. You Are Secretariat. And only you are responsible for your actions, no matter what cards you have been dealt. As Diane says, "Sometimes life's a bitch then you keep living."