Cat Marnell competing with yours truly for the Sloppiest Person of the Century Award (photo courtesy of Getty Images).
*4/15/2024: Follow-up addressing the Reddit drama here.
Cat Marnell is Cher Horowitz on Adderall
If you’re wondering what the Cat Marnell who emerges in her 2016 memoir How to Murder Your Life is like, picture Cher Horowitz from Clueless if she had been on rewire-your-fake-Christmas-tree amounts of Addy (okay, Cher probably was). Imagine if she had gotten pregnant before graduating from prep school, then ignored the “problem” for so long that her parents had to pick her up and transport her to a different state to get an abortion; then lost her Barnard acceptance due to message board shenanigans and decided to move to New York City instead, where she began interning for beauty magazines and k-holing with minor celebrities in between wielding stilettos during Benadryl- and amphetamine psychosis-induced battles with imaginary rodents. That’s Cat as she writes about herself during peak active addiction (and in presenting those messy moments, she is at her finest).
Cat Marnell began her writing career at Lucky and other print publications in the beauty industry, and her addiction memoir stays true to her dirty blonde roots. It’s very “What I Wore to My First Abortion” and “How to Conceal Track Marks with Three Products You Already Have in Your Purse.” At times, there is a dark humor to Cat's brand of addictive maelstrom that I can’t help but appreciate. If nothing else, it can be said that Cat is unapologetically herself. For a confessional writer, this can mean everything.
What Works: Champagne Problems and Fucked-Up Relationships
Cat’s portrayal of her white, upper middle class family’s dysfunction paints a picture that many Millennials will identify with. Cat’s psychiatrist father and Licensed Clinical Social Worker mother were all too ready to believe that prescription amphetamines would be the solution to the troublesome teenage Cat’s issues; they also authorized the kidnapping of Cat’s older sister, Emily, so that she could be hauled out of state to a “school” where she was physically and psychologically abused (a la Paris Hilton). Cat’s parents might seem effortlessly put-together in their own professional and social lives, but they are utterly inept as parents. Her grandmother, who Cat calls Mimi, is Cat’s shelter from this storm; Mimi gives Cat insight into her mother’s college-era anorexia, as well as practical support in pursuing her career aspirations after Cat has taken a flamethrower to her life.
Cat is a self-proclaimed weird girl, and her social isolation fuels friendships and romantic relationships that tend toward the intense and codependent. Sometimes, as is the case with her friend Marco, who she later suggests is a malignant narcissist, they even become violent (I wrote a piece on why I detest the current trend of throwing around Cluster B terminology, which says as much about the person using it as it does about who they’re talking about, but for now, I will leave that alone).
Cat’s tendency to end up in twisted relationships is something that I can deeply relate to – being so desperate for human connection that I ignored the red flags, all too glad to pretend that someone else’s issues didn’t exist if they did the same for me, that we were in our own little world where societal norms simply didn't apply. Don’t even get me started on my proclivity to meet someone and then become intimate with them on every level far too quickly, justifying this based on my “instant connection” with them (not realizing that I had painted a neon target on my back for anyone who wanted to manipulate me).
Cat also does a bang-up job of describing the battle between her addiction and her ambition to become a beauty editor, which leads to her walking away from a key opportunity at Lucky. While reading this scene, I was reminded of the day when pursuing my calling to become a doctor while wrestling with the demons of my opioid and benzo addictions became too much; apropos of nothing, I took a leave of absence from medical school and never went back. Anyone who has sacrificed a lifelong dream on the altar of their addiction will find resonance with this aspect of Cat’s story.
What Doesn’t Work: Does Cat Really Know Herself?
Cat doesn’t have all the answers; this is okay. In the conclusion to her book, Cat admits that she still uses Adderall, her drug of choice, though she insists that she has curtailed her habit and is attending to her physical and mental health in a more responsible way. In a certain sense, I admire Cat’s honesty. For most people, addiction is a cyclic, lifelong struggle, and it is regrettable that we hear almost exclusively from the small proportion of addicts who believe that they have found the Long-Term Solution™* in complete abstinence through 12-step meetings, DBT, Sufi chanting, or whatever. My own struggle with addiction has led me to pursue recovery in different forms at different times, so I found Cat’s representation of what recovery can look like in the absence of complete abstinence to be a refreshing departure from the usual fare. *I almost said "Final Solution."
On the other hand, lacking answers and lacking insight are not the same thing, and there are moments in the book – reinforced by Cat’s comments elsewhere – that lead me to question whether Cat is in a place from which she can write about her life in a rigorously honest way. Cat seems to believe that the combination of a dysfunctional childhood plus an early, medically instigated Adderall addiction led to the downward spiral that began during her adolescence and lasted through her mid-thirties. I was disappointed that Cat's commentary on her own character defects is mostly confined to a couple of sections in which she perfunctorily notes that she has inconvenienced her roommate, Nev “Catfish” Schulman, by subjecting him to the violent fallout of her relationship with Marco; ditto for a coworker from a beauty magazine who Cat stressed out on her coworker's wedding day.
I don’t expect performative self-flagellation, of course, but Cat’s attention to her own intrinsic flaws is as superficial as a lipstick review. She has a tendency to paint herself as a victim, placing the blame for much of the mayhem in her life on ADHD or on other people without ever acknowledging or examining the part of herself that clearly gravitates toward chaos, drama, and self-destruction – the part of her that forms unhealthy relationships with people and then lets them back into her life again and again.
I would be more inclined to believe that this failure of self-reflection is just an artifact of the writing and editing process if it weren’t for Cat’s conduct before and after publishing the book. In a YouTube video from May 2023 that features Cat talking with British acquaintances, Cat blithely responds to one question with “I know that I’m a good person,” which she goes on to qualify by saying that this means that she never sets out to harm others.
In my younger days, I, too, put great emphasis on my good intentions – failing to recognize that perhaps being a “good person” is as much about the objective results of our actions as it is about nebulous intentions. What’s that saying about the road to hell, Cat? After all, when you steal someone’s stereo, it doesn’t really mean much to them that you loathe stealing and promised yourself that you’ll slip a hundred under their door when you have money again someday.
Cat looking hazy; I think this was from her Vice columnist / PCP and ketamine arc (photo courtesy of Vice).
What Doesn’t Work: Does Cat Really Understand Her Family's Dynamics?
Cat’s treatment of her older sister, Emily, reinforces my suspicions that she has a long way to go in terms of character examination and amends-making. In the book, Cat portrays Emily as a devoted sister who is also the victim of their parents’ dysfunctional decision-making. She mentions that Emily lets her stay on her couch when Cat needs a place to crash and that Emily rushes to Cat's apartment when Cat is locked inside overdosing.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned about Cat’s massive, public falling out with Emily in the years after the book was published. Apparently, this involved Cat staying with Emily and Emily's now ex-husband for a time, during which she allegedly introduced Emily to Adderall, and then, Emily alleges, ditched her as soon as the money ran out due to Emily’s divorce.
Cat now presents an entirely different version of the family dynamics in which Emily is a money-hungry, manipulative bully, whereas her father is a healed man. In fact, Cat and her father sued Emily for her comments and actions during a time when Emily was recently divorced, unable to see her children, dealing with severe mental health challenges, and purportedly penniless. I can’t imagine how it feels for Emily, who rushed all over New York City catering to Cat’s crises during the events written about in How to Murder Your Life, to be not just abandoned but also excoriated by her high-profile little sis during her time of need. Again, it leads me to question the depth and authenticity of Cat’s self-examination; this is not the kind of behavior that we expect from someone in recovery.
What Doesn’t Work: Are Cat’s Addiction Experiences Relatable?
Perhaps Cat’s self-insight would be greater if her privilege hadn’t protected her from some of the wretched lows that most addicts experience. For years after graduating from high school, Cat lived in Manhattan on her parents’ dime, which allowed her to spend her days at coveted unpaid internships and her nights at exclusive clubs frequented by New York City’s Who's Who. Cat was never homeless, and at the lowest points in her active addiction, she always had the option to return to her grandmother’s place down South and “work” in exchange for twenty or thirty grand to catch up on rent and fund her next bender. She was never arrested, partly because her addiction was primarily to prescription drugs obtained from doctors.
It is so thoroughly, boringly predictable that the rich, beautiful blonde girl beauty blogger* got the six-figure book deal, likely using contacts built up during her years of partying with similarly privileged people (*How’s that for alliteration? And I didn’t even need 60 milligrams of Dexedrine to get me there). What ever happened to the Basketball Diaries? One of my favorite things about addiction memoirs has been that, like queer art, they traditionally take us to the fringes of society.
On this point, in one Vice column, Cat wrote that “Girl drug addicts sleep alone.” I recall reading this line and having a visceral negative reaction. Almost all of the female drug addicts that I know exchanged sex for money at some point. Those who didn’t were nearly all stuck in awful relationships with dealers or other manipulators, forced to rely on men to fund and “protect” them in a dangerous, exploitative subculture.
I’m not suggesting that Cat’s story isn’t worth telling because she is from a privileged background, because stories about addiction from every level of society are important and need to be heard. But to the extent that this privileged background has limited Cat’s insight into herself and her disease, it does take away from the power, reach, and authenticity of her story.
Let's face it, Cat is so hot that it's hard to say bad things about her (photo courtesy of Rolling Stone).
Cat Marnell and the 12 Steps: Sit Down, Cat Marnell
There’s a final point that I’d like to touch on, and to me it is the most egregious (it’s also not directly related to the book). In the years since she published How to Murder Your Life, Cat has been honest about her struggle with maintaining sobriety. She admits to overdosing on fentanyl and has expressed wanting to give up Adderall but not being able to because she needs it to be “functional.” In a podcast with Leah McSweeney from March 2023, Cat indicated that she now has 72 days of real-deal sobriety, which she has achieved through 12-Step program participation. (Cat is acting a little, uh, strange in this podcast, but I'll leave that alone).
For those of you who are familiar with the Program, you will immediately recognize the problem with this statement. Anonymity is one of the 12 Pillars of the AA / NA programs, a revered tradition that prevents the conflation of programs with personalities. This would be especially dangerous for a disease like addiction, for which lifetime relapse rates are so high and struggles with sobriety are so messy; a high-profile relapse on the part of someone perceived to be a leader of a 12-Step program could seriously damage its public image.
Cat herself acknowledges the tradition of anonymity, but she chooses to discuss her participation in 12-Step fellowships nevertheless because “it’s known that all the best people are in the Program” (I’m paraphrasing; I think that what she actually said sounds even more vapid). Coming from someone with only 72 days of sobriety under her belt, this is a shockingly blithe, asinine statement. Cat’s life is precisely the type of public mess that the tradition of anonymity is designed to prevent the Program from being associated with. Like me, she is a chronic relapser, and if / when she has another relapse, she risks giving people who have little experience with the Program the impression that it is ineffective.
Speaking frankly, Cat’s discussion of her participation in the Program pisses me off. For decades, involvement in AA and NA programs has allowed people whose lives are in ruins to climb a ladder back to functionality and stability. Oftentimes, key housing and job opportunities for recovering addicts have hinged on the endorsement of a long-time member of AA or NA, who sticks his or her neck out on behalf of someone who is newer in recovery and needs a chance. With her reckless comments, Cat is devaluing the social capital of the AA and NA Programs, and – out of all of the above – this is perhaps what bothers me most about her. That she does this so cluelessly is, unfortunately, on brand for the type of heedless person that her memoir reveals her to be (I’m reminded of the "careless" Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby).
Right to the Point
How to Murder Your Life is worth reading from a pop culture standpoint if you’re into the Millennial NYC scene and / or the beauty industry. Millennial addicts will likely find points of relatability in Cat Marnell’s description of her family dynamics, high school experience, and active addiction escapades.
Beyond that, Cat Marnell shows an unbecoming lack of self-insight in her memoir that is reinforced by her public actions and comments. It’s unfortunate that she has been rewarded with a six-figure book deal when so many people with more interesting stories and better language to tell them with have not (cough: where’s my book deal?).
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