Boeing, Help Me: Confessions of A 787 Dreamliner Addict

aNewDomain — Okay. I’m ready. All right. Ahem. My name is Terry, and I’m a Dreamliner Addict. An addict of the worst kind. Hi, everyone.

I’m a little nervous right now, but I really want to share my wisdom, strength and hope with all of you other Dreamliner addicts. So here goes. I’m so grateful for the rooms of Dreamliner Anonymous, because now I know I don’t have to suffer alone. Because, as everyone here knows, once you go Boeing 787 Dreamliner, you can’t go back.

I’ve been having terrible Dreamliner cravings lately. Okay, I can see from the way you’re nodding that I’m not the only one. Anyone who’s ever ridden on the Dreamliner will never want to fly anything else. And as more and more airlines add Boeing 787 Dreamliners to their fleets, there will be more and more of us addicts.

Wow. Looks like this 12-step meeting may need to relocate to the Hollywood Bowl. Seriously, can someone bring in some more chairs? People are sitting on the floor here …

What It Was Like

I fantasize about it. I think about the Dreamliner all the time, and I have ever since I flew to Japan and back on a Japan Air 787 Dreamliner a few weeks ago. It was heaven. Even the lighting was heaven. I mean, I try to be sober-minded about all this, but I can’t stop thinking about the Dreamliner lighting. There, I said it.

I know that some 737s now offer mood lighting. But no other jet has big windows like the 787 Dreamliner, windows you can lighten or darken with just a tap of a finger. Can I have a glass of water, please? Thank you.

And then there’s the air. Oh, Boeing, do I jones for that moist, amazing Dreamliner air. It is pressurized at 6,000 feet to make the air like that. It was amazing. I was hooked immediately.

Ever notice how, when passengers fly 10-12 hours on the Dreamliner, they practically glide off? Well, I glided off. I loved gliding off.

For the first time in my life, as I glided, I felt at one with the world. Like everything was alright. That one flight changed everything for me, and for awhile, it was incredibly fun.

I’m still jonesing for that feeling. But “fun” turned into “fun and trouble.” And now, it’s just trouble. I’ve got the Dreamliner monkey on my back, and I’ve got it bad. Thanks so much for being here for me, everyone.

But I keep thinking: I’ve had to peel myself off other jets like a wanderer escaping the desert. My eyes were red. My vision was bleary. My skin was parched. Other passengers suffered as I did, too, even though they pretended to be having fun. They had it bad, too, I see now. Their dry little marble eyeballs looked barely able to focus after they got off flights. That ocular redness, that dry and hungry licking of lips … ah, there’s that craving again.

My eyes are so dry after a regular flight that I have to douse my peepers with eye drops four or five times an hour. That’s my co-addiction, but I digress …

Anyway, I keep thinking how I never felt like this when I got off  the 787 Dreamliner. Like I said, I glided off.

What Happened

You know, on the Dreamliner I only had to apply eye drops a few times over the course of my 11-hour flight from Los Angeles to Japan and the slightly shorter flight back.

And that’s when I knew it. I was a goner. I know I shouldn’t place blame — I know I am the person most responsible for my addiction and that it’s a sickness, really, a spiritual malady of mind and body, as you people say — but I do blame Boeing for all this misery. The cravings. The addiction. Dear Boeing, I think you’re responsible for these painful withdrawals I’m going through right now.

In the 2nd step of 787 Dreamliner Anonymous, I made Boeing my Higher Power. Boeing, please help me now.

I do put my faith in Boeing and trust that its benevolence will get me through this. It must be benevolent and all-knowing, right? I mean, how else could it have created the Dreamliner? Will it eventually get all airliners to carry this jet, so I can fly again without misery.

I both love annd hate Boeing for my addiction. My relationship with my Higher Power is, um, complicated.

Just trying to be honest here.

And then there’s that Dreamliner bathroom.

It haunts my memories. I can still see it, actually. The Dreamliner bathroom just ruined me. It had more mood lighting and more space than I ever thought possible. It had a self-flushing toilet, for godsake. What can you do after experiencing an airplane bathroom like that?

No other aircraft potty will ever compare. I have to accept that, just like we all do, Boeing help us all.

So here’s a secret I hope you all will never repeat outside these rooms: I actually locked myself in the Dreamliner bathroom and muted the shutter on my camera to secretly take pictures of it. Oh, man, that was good.

I’m glad you’re laughing. But guys, I googled “Dreamliner toilet,” and I know I am not the only shutterbug in the loo. Now, that’s fellowship.

When I look back at it now, I can see this for what it is: An addiction that comes on as powerfully as heroin or crack. It was addicted time-out, via the Japan Airlines 787 Dreamliner.

It is not just love for the Dreamliner that is destroying my sanity and my health right now. It’s Dreamliner lust.

What It’s Like Now

Okay, I realize that’s my addiction talking, and that it is possible I’m in this relationship alone. The jet, after all, can’t be in the hangar fantasizing about me. Can it? No. I keep having the panicked thought that, to Boeing, I might not even exist at all. Could I have a tissue, please?

And yes, yes, of course I know this is a disease. I know I am a sick Dreamliner addict. But I’m just going to come out and say it:

I don’t want to ever strap myself into a seat on some random jumbo jet with its cold, dry cabin and equally frigid flight attendants, those empty souls in skirts and suits who are bitter they are flying some old MD80 or 767 and not the splendid 787 Dreamliner.

I never want to go back to that kind of cramped and colorless life before I first got turned on to the Dreamliner. Why should I have to? There must be another way, and I accept I need help.

Well, that’s as honest as I can be today. So, if you are around after the meeting, I would love to get your name and a number I can text you at. I think I need sponsees. Also, I am looking for a sponsor who shares the pain of my Dreamliner withdrawal and can bring me some some strength and hope, too. We can have coffee … or Margaritas. Thank you all for listening.

And now, please join me in reading aloud the 12 steps … 

The 12 Steps of Dreamliner Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction to the 787 Dreamliner —  and because we can’t bear flying on any other kind of jet, our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Boeing as we understood it.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to Boeing, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Boeing remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Boeing to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought to improve our conscious contact with Boeing as we understand it, hoping only for knowledge of Boeing’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Boeing 787 Dreamliner addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Appealing to Boeing (step 5) and helping others (step 12) are the main reasons I’m speaking today. If you are also obsessed with the Dreamliner or know someone as afflicted as I am, please, please contact me here at aNewDomain. And yes, of course I am looking for a sponsor. And I’m willing to sponsor others.

After the break, we’ll close with the Boeing Serenity Way prayer.

p.s. Boeing and Vietnamese Airlines created this special video for the Paris Air Show. It shows the Dreamliner 787-9 performing an almost vertical take-off. Turns out there are more Dreamliner addicts all the time. Check this out.

I’m Terry Gardner and this is aNewDomain.

Cover image: Sobernation.com, All Rights Reserved.