The Road to Addiction
A light but steady rain tickles at a dark puddle. The reflection of the bright street light vibrates as each drop reaches the surface. The weather matches your mood and its soothing to your soul. You know you are reflecting back to a better time period of your life as you stare out of the droplet covered window. You’re just not sure as to the exact time of life you are longing for. You’re unsure where your life began to go wrong and therefore unsure where to look back and find the positive memories. It’s all one big, jumbled mess at this point anyway. As a child, you’re sure the future was bright. Now? You’re wondering when the darkness entered and how you let it get to this point. How can someone so bright, so beautiful and so smart, be this lost?
It’s tough seeing
the water flow down the glass so easily when you yourself can’t produce a
single tear. It’s like the universe is
mocking you as the pain builds inside with no outlet to release. It’s too much for today. And you love
today. You love every minute of every
day and this pain is just too
much. For today, you’ll make that phone
call and that short drive to the dealer once again.
The road to
addiction is filled with green lights.
You can’t seem to take your foot off the gas pedal. Guilt and worry overtaking your logic, you
think every car behind you is an officer of the law. He pulls in behind you and, suddenly you
can’t seem to find the turn signal. Not
wanting to make any sudden movements, you continue on. You refuse to have your problems exposed and
therefore getting arrested is not an option.
Not to mention, you won’t be able to get high behind bars. Not to mention, deep down, you know being
locked in a cell might make you find yourself.
Might make you have to work through your problems. Another green light and you just…keep…going.
All of the
other cars on the road seem to move to the slow lane and get out of your
way. (Except the cop, he’s definitely still following you.) As you pass each vehicle, the driver slows
down and stares into your existence.
Judging you, recognizing you from some unpleasant event in the past, and
then judging you some more. They know exactly what you are up to. Some other cars slow down to a stop and cheer
you on as you pass.
At one red
light, you look over and see your mother.
She looks like she hasn’t slept in days from worry. The look on her face destroys you. The image will stay as a black mark on your
soul for eternity. For a quick second,
you decide you want to give up, apologize and admit everything. You try to get her attention, but the light
turns green and her windows turn to tint.
She speeds off to try and find you, not knowing you were right there next
to her beeping your horn and waving your arms.
You’d love to speed and catch up to her but, that fucking cop, he’s
still there.
When you do catch
up at the next light you again stop and look over and this time your mother is there
and she’s as happy as can be. For some
reason, at first, this makes you more upset.
And then you quickly realize why.
Its 25 years ago. Your mom is
smiling as she looks in the rear view mirror at the baby in the car seat behind
her. She sees hope, she sees potential;
she has a meaning for life. She feels
complete. Again, she pulls off. This time, you don’t consider trying to catch
up because you would just bring her down.
Again,
you’re alone.
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For the
purpose of this piece, I’d like to define addiction. We are not just talking about physically
addicting, mind altering substances here.
There are those substances that make you need them over and over again to make you feel right. There are those substances that your body
becomes physically addicted to. But,
included in the definition of addiction here, are those mind altering
substances that negatively affect your dreams.
They negatively affect your family life, your bank account, your
criminal record (not your fault), your health, your social standing in the
neighborhood, your ego, your judgement, your driving ability, etc.
For the
purpose of this piece, the word ‘addiction’ can be used for any mind altering
substance that does any of these negative things to your life. Because, and this statement should be taken
lightly, doing drugs is not always a bad thing.
At times, a certain drug may be exactly
what you need. Done correctly, safely
and in the right environment, drugs can positively alter your perspective, get
you through an emotional rough patch or, possibly, show you the secrets of the
universe. Each day, more and more
wonderful uses for drugs are being discovered.
For today,
because you have to reach a certain level to be able to use wisely, we are talking about the negative and improper use of
drugs, aka addiction. We are talking
about how you let drugs rule
you. How you let drugs become bigger than you.
In your
addiction, you creatively worked magic to procure enough cash for the next fix,
even though you probably weren’t working a lot.
In your recovery, you can use that same
drive, knowledge and determination, to become and stay clean from the drugs that negatively affect your life.
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Another
important note; let’s separate the law from what we are talking about. Let’s not factor in the illegalities within
the “war on drugs”. This way, we can
focus on one thing, you and your choices.
The law (Decisions made by people that know nothing at all about the chemical needs of you and your body.) has
to be separated from your own personal
journey.
The fact
that prescription medication, cigarettes and alcohol are legal and other drugs are not is, (Yes, you have been right along),
bullshit. You, as a man, are born with the choice to do
whatever you want as long as you are hurting no one else. That choice is yours. The negative consequences are also
yours. And that is why we are here
talking about this subject. Not because you “broke a law”, but
because your choices negatively affected your life. And it’s time to get yourself back on
track. Be above drugs.
When I first
got out of jail, it was important for me to use drugs again to prove to myself
that I was indeed above them. The level
of confidence I had going in was unmatched.
Now, confidence
is a scary thing because, when you feel it, you usually don’t bother to realize
that it might be false. You usually fail
to realize, that there are still many
levels of your life left to conquer.
Many more steps to climb. The great
feeling I got from using drugs after being locked in a cage for 15 months was not only due to the tolerance level my
body had gotten itself to. A good
majority of the happiness was due to the realization that I was correct. I was now, above drugs. And that’s
something that everyone should strive to be.
Being scared
of them in the first place, like the government has trained the masses to be,
already puts drugs above the majority
before they had a chance. But that
topic’s for another day.
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