If there's anything I've learned from Valley of the Dolls, it's that addiction is the desire for a temporary situation to last forever.
As is easily deduced from glancing at the book's cover, or even its title (Anne, Neely, and Jennifer call the pills they abuse "dolls"), the primary addiction in the book is that to prescription medication. Neely O'Hara is the hardest hit.
Neely is first introduced to Seconals (or, "red dolls,") by her friend Jennifer, who cites them as the magical cure for insomnia. For Neely, the red dolls are a manifestation of stability in her life that had never really been there before. Neely was a poor nomad, riding around the country with her vaudeville act, unsure of whether she would have somewhere to sleep every night, or where she came from. While most children have a system of comfy support being provided by their parents, all Neely had was uncertainty. So, she was drawn to the red dolls because of the warmth of her perceived constancy (permanence, if you will) of their effects. Seconals were the lullabies every night that her parents were never able to provide her.
However, she soon came to realize that the effects of one Seconal a night were not permanent, so she continued to up her dose. Gradually, she came to crave more—yellow dolls for longer sleep, green dolls for weight loss, Dexedrine for pure bliss. Her addiction took over her life, turned her into a monster.
Anne took her to an institution (as she called it, a "funny farm,") where she gained weight and adopted a newly agreeable disposition. It seemed that the effects of the institution, too, were permanent. The weight she gained there clung stubbornly to Neely's body, and she seemed to be on a relentlessly uphill journey to a new kind of fame (being loved for her voice, and only her voice, and not her conventional beauty.)
Unfortunately the funny farm's grasp on Neely is temporary, and she quickly spirals into oblivion, loses buckets of weight, and becomes a monster once again. She even sleeps with Lyon while he's married to Anne, proving that their friendship, which used to be a comforting constant in both their lives, is no longer something long-lasting.
Anne Welles in hopelessly in love with Lyon Burke, although the word, "addiction," would also be appropriate to describe her endless affection. Anne wants nothing more than to be with him, so much that it wreaks havoc on her ability to connect with other people for years at a time. (Sweet Little Anne breaks the hearts of both Allen Cooper and Kevin Gilmore—literally, in Kevin's case, as he has a heart attack.)
Anne's feelings regarding Lyon only sit at the most extreme ends of the feeling spectrum. When she is with him, she is happier than she's ever been in her entire life; when she's without him, she doesn't feel anything; and when he is sleeping with other women or deciding that he can't stay with her, she feels worse than she ever has in her entire life.
She wants the magnificent bursts of intoxication that she feels from being around Lyon to be permanent, to never leave her—just like she wants Lyon to never leave her, either.
The fact that seeing Lyon with other women hurts Anne so much, but Anne can't resist him, and cannot fathom leaving him is indicative of the fact that she is addicted to him. And the fact that perfect, inimitable, innocent Anne Welles makes the decision to take a Seconal to numb the pain that Lyon's innate infidelity causes her drives this point home even more.
Jennifer North's vice is beauty, the result of ephemeral youth. Jennifer's beauty, she believes, is the only thing other people see in her. It's the only thing she loves about herself, the only aspect of her being that she is aware of.
Her face and her body were the catalysts for her career (landing her, first, in Hit the Sky, and then reviving her career by catching the attention of French art film director Claude Chardot.) And her relationships, too, are centered on her beauty. Claude is excited by his new partner's good looks, Maria (Jennifer's Spanish lover from boarding school in Switzerland) practically owns Jennifer's body, and even her mother only ever seems to care about whether her daughter is watching her weight and taking care of her skin.
As Jennifer continued to grow older, what she wanted to be her everlasting beauty was continually threatened. So, she attempted to make it permanent with a facelift (although, the surgery was Claude's idea.) The final test to what Jennifer is so proud of is a stint with breast cancer. A walnut-sized tumor is found in her breast. Her doctor tells her that her breast will have to be removed to insure that the tumor does not metastasize. Initially, Jennifer is horrified by the notion that her beautiful body will be mutilated, although she gradually accepts that
When Jennifer tells her boyfriend, Senator Winston Adams about the tumor, instead of asking about her health, he asks if her gorgeous breast is anything less than pristine. She tells him it wasn't, and he sighs a melodramatic sigh of relief, and says that everything is okay, as long as his beautiful "babies" are safe. Jennifer is not his baby. Her breasts are. If he feels concern for the woman he supposedly loves, he doesn't verbalize it.
Jennifer takes the senator's concerns to heart, and makes the only move that she feels can make permanent her beauty, her lover's affection, and the effects of pills.
Jennifer's suicide proves that, at least in Valley of the Dolls, death is the only ultimatum, the only state of being that can transcend the inevitability of temporariness. After she overdoses, Jennifer never has to worry about the effects of her dolls wearing off, and she knows that Winston will never lose interest in her because her beauty will never fade, as a result of never growing too old.
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