A good person woke up today but that status may not be maintained before the day is over. We are talking 24 hours of good decision, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year!
The pressure.
Happy New year 🎊
What happened to all the resolutions?
What happened to the self control you had? What happened to all the promise to stop when and if you wish?
You see? It’s already started. One bad decision away from upright lane you chose to walk.
The need for a sobriety companion, the discipline it will take to count every second without needing the substance of dependency.
Where do you think addiction comes from? Is it true that some of us have more natural pre-disposition to addiction or are we all just addicts?
I know what you are thinking right this moment… why is she writing about addiction, is she trying to say something about what she is silently dealing with?
Do you know what I love most about being a writer, especially as a connoisseur of memories? it is how many people assume that everything you write about is a fraction of what you are going through. It is comparable to how we think we know celebrities because we have watched them onscreen a lot and may have even started to recognize some of their “mannerism.”
More often than not, writing is a form of juxtaposition and reinvention of relatable ideas or a way to clarify myths, or get to the root cause of an epiphany. At least that is what I typically aim for.
Back to addiction, I remember having a conversation with my dad as a teenager where he loudly proclaimed “we are all addicts, even the best of us.” I remember seating there thinking – why is he saying this to me? Am I ready for this talk or is he trying to tell me something?
The conversations I have with my dad sometimes are beyond my comprehension at the moment of their happening but they take root eventually. Here I am some couple of years after the declaration finding ways to validate the rationale and to give credence to the profound sincerity of flawed human living.
When I started formulating this question in my head, I decided to talk with my anamcara. This is an excerpt from the poser –what is the cause of addiction? “…addictions are often representative of an underlying fear, usually an absence of self-trust, a denial of conviction or a betrayal of same…” Of course, I expected this response, I was in search of depth but realized I didn’t even want to get this deep.
I am interested instead in the journey of an addict. Not the before, not what led him or her there, not the cure, if there ever is one. Rather, the continuous exhaustion of being present in addiction and being addictive. I know these are separate concepts but instead of seeing addictive as a complimentary high, instead, interpret it as a magnet for addiction.
At what moment did the addict recognizes the path of the addiction? Is it not funny that the last people to identify as addicts are addicts themselves? I imagine that it must be like trying to close a door because the object of your desire is in it but then having your dress get caught as you close the door, so you have to open it to remove the dress but as you turn, you fall for the object of your desire again- The Pandora box
Most addicts often say, “I am not addicted, I can stop when I want, I just have to want to stop.” I don´t think that it is the ability to stop that gives the control over addiction, rather the not needing the substance of addiction.
I think addiction is largely rooted in habits formed from brokenness. Having to treat a monster that won’t stop bleeding out. The addiction is the treatment but not the cure. I do not think it is our bodies that get addicted regardless of what form the addiction takes, I think it is our souls that get addicted.
It must mean that the cure is lurking somewhere deeply in the recess of our mind, that it may involve a reorientation of our perceptions and redefining our control, lack of it, or need for it.
However, as I said previously, the goal of this post is about the journey of addiction, not the starting point nor the end of it. If there ever is an end but rather the middle points, that are too far from the beginning and not so close to the end. The step-by-step burrowing leading to further entrenchment in the addictive patterns. Make of this what you will but I know you get the struggle….
Connoisseur of Memories 