TheUnexpectedAddict

Made it 22 this time, up from 16 but was really convinced this wouldn’t be quite so hard ....“I could stop, if I wanted to...if it wasn’t for...if I had a....” 

Never had a problem with Step 1, I’ve known I was an addict for years now but that’s as far as I’ve ever got. 

In the two years since rehab I’ve come a long way--outwardly. Maybe not so much lately...but I’ve achieved a lot. I guess but more like... I got lucky. I was born into privilege after all. 

Let’s face it I’m white and I come from a good family, I have advantages...and I should thank my lucky stars because without those things would have turned out much worse for me. My point is not to brag at all, just to illustrate that I recognize my lack of extreme consequences is not representative of what my addiction is capable of.   

Yet I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not done. That I’ve kept this up this long, how hard can it be? But the truth is it’s coming apart at the seams I carelessly sewed in attempt to keep up with appearances...and it’s only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down. 

Allowing yourself to need someone makes you vulnerable to pain. Not just this but it requires you to allow someone to see the broken person that you really are; stepping back from the illusions you’ve created with your lies.

It is our hatred of ourselves that makes us feel it would be impossible for anyone to accept us.  Even if half our mind tells us otherwise, this deep inner hatred prevails, making it impossible to conceive of someone loving you for who you really are. 

Or maybe that’s just what you tell yourself...because the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t...

Relationships are messy. Love is dangerous. People are out of your control.

And so is addiction  Drugs will bring you heart ache, pain, destruction but… needing drugs feels safer than needing someone else. It means you can continue live in the palace of lies you’ve created...numb yourself from the pain you don’t want to handle.

But when it comes crashing down, which you know it will… it will bring you to depths of hell deeper than you’ve ever known before. 

Here in lies the true insanity of addiction.

Most addicts know what the consequences will be even before they happen. Some have experienced them once twice, twenty times before. 

Yet a few hours of not being yourself, not being able to feel, that void of painful emptiness, trumps the consequences and robs you of all logical thought. 

And it always ends the same 

Yet you’re not done until you’re done and that’s a problem when you’re a petulant child or you’re in pain that you would do anything to get rid of, consequences be damned.

Addiction has a way of putting a wall between you and the people who love you-- you can see their love but you can’t feel it. 

This means get angry and irritable because not being able to feel love makes it easy to forget the things people do out of love.  Then you end up hating yourself for being so ungrateful--for hurting people who have only ever tried to help you.  

The worst part of all of it is, in the most selfish part of your ugly core, you are angry with them for loving you because it means your choices can hurt others. It means when you pick up the bottle or the needle you’re conscious of the fact that this could ruin not only your life--but their life as well.