Britaholic

I'm not a worldly person, per se, but I know this much: if you have an addiction, there is a meeting out there for you . . . almost.  See, there are meetings for alcoholics, over eaters, people suffering from depression, cancer, and so on and so on.  While those meetings are valuable to the attendees, there's one group of sufferers left out: Britaholics.
Before you ask, Britaholics are not addicted to British people (although I do quite like them, personally.  I find them to be cheerful, intelligent and the accents are unbeatable).  No, a Britaholic won't be boarding a plane for London or Manchester, they won't gobble up all the Chelsea football club paraphernalia they can get their hands on, and they certainly won't be ordering bangers and mash (which I found out are sausages and mashed potatoes).
No, a Britaholic has a much deeper addiction.  Let's pretend this is a Britaholics Anonymous meeting.  I'll start.
"My name is Ryan and I'm a Britaholic.  I've been addicted to Britney Spears since 2000."
How, you might ask, did I come to be this way.  The same way an alcoholic becomes addicted to alcohol or a smoker to cigarettes: I had a taste and I needed more.  And like most addicts, my addiction didn't develop overnight.  Like a drunk, I needed more than one drink to discover I had a problem.
I'd like to think I'm a functioning Britaholic.  Of course, like anyone, my addiction is well know.  Most drinkers can't hide their alcoholism.  The biggest difference between us is how they get drunk off spirits and I get drunk off Spears.
Would it be easier (and healthier) to get my kicks off broccoli spears?  Sure.  But no one ever got high off broccoli.  I've chosen this addiction and I have to live with it.
It all started in the fall of 1998 when I was a freshman in high school, err, college (damn, I'm old).  One day while driving back to campus I had the radio on (proving just how long ago this occurred) and an innocuous, little pop song came on by an artist named Britney Spears.  The song was called "Baby One More Time."  It was good
Some time later the video premiered on MTV (again, this was a LONG time ago) and it was really good.  I mean REALLY good.  Iconic good.  Legendarily good.  It seemed the seeds had been sown for a full blown Brit addiction.
Not so fast.  Unfortunately for my burgeoning addiction, Britney chose to release "Sometimes."  While it's a fine song, it's not the kind of song a heterosexual 18-year old should be listening to.  However, although the fire died a bit, an ember still burned.
I saw her on TV, read her in print, but most importantly, I saw her on the beach (not in person, of course, though back then the possibility kind of existed) in the video for "Sometimes."  So while the song wasn't fit for someone such as myself, a video of a gorgeous 17-year old cavorting on the beach was right up my ally.
Combine the video with her third single, a much more heterosexually-friendly dance number called "(You Drive Me) Crazy," and the accompanying video (where she, and don't be shocked when I say this, looked fantastic), the ember burned just a bit stronger.
Sadly, Britney chose to slow it way down with "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart."  She got all sappy and romantic.  And to top it off, she wasn't even cavorting on the beach.  Actually, she wasn't cavorting at all.
It hurts to say this, but it appeared my addiction wouldn't get past the infatuation phase.  Perhaps Britney would be just another pretty face with a couple catchy songs.  To be fair, no one knew her career would explode.  No one could have seen that coming.
Let's pause here for a second and get some facts straight: Britney's a gorgeous woman.  However, to claim her success was solely due to that factor ignores all her other attributes, such as her voice, her dancing, and, mostly importantly, the quality of her songs.  Remember at that time there was a handful of attractive young pop singers and none of them reached Britney's level of success.
Anyway, in 2000, Britney released her sophomore album, "Oops I Did it Again!" and the song and video of the same name.  Well, that video (and, for the record, on its merits it sucks, but Britney in red leather does not) and that song were enough for me to start to develop that addiction.  If I may steal from Twilight: "She was my own personal brand of heroin."
I have to take a second and point out that Britney was not my first addiction.  No, before she came along, my heart was taken by Love.  Not emotional love, though I'm sure that's wonderful.  I'm speaking about a better kind Love: one that's sexy, funny, angelic, and comes without heartbreak or rejection.  That Love would be Jennifer Love.  Yes, I was technically a Loveaholic before I was a Britaholic.  But, honestly, when my Britney flame began to radiate enough heat to warm a 1,000 houses, Love faded into the background.  It's like when a married man goes to the beach with his wife and he sees a gorgeous woman in a skimpy bikini; although he loves the wife, she doesn't exist for that moment.  For me, when Britney said she did it again and when became a slave, Love just disappeared.
Has my Brit addiction waned?  Like anything, time does dull the senses to it.  And others have come and gone: Amanda Bynes, Kristen Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams to name a few.  But in my heart I'll always be a Britaholic.
Even when she's old and irrelevant to the mainstream, I'll always remember those days when that fire burned deep inside.  The days I suffered withdrawal symptoms when she took that break, got married, had kids.  And, of course, the days when I nearly OB'ed (Over-Britneyed).
Nothing good ever ends, as long as you keep it in your heart.

Are you a Britaholic?  Share your story.