or how to tell yourself you are succeeding even though you are failing spectacularly
So, I was (am?) an addict. It started innocently enough. I was seeking relief for actual pain and in the end I was taking it not to get sick. Every addict is just like every other addict and we all share the same drug seeking behaviors.
Mine was insulated from the horrors of many of my fellow addicts. I did lose a lot materially, but I still had a roof in the end. I had the middle class drug addict experience.
Part of that experience is that ‘we don’t talk about daddy’s drug crusted lips’ that comes from the whole conspiracy of silence that is the white middle class.
Here’s the thing about drug addicts. They will take advantage of any opening to further their ever increasing appetites. And boy will they exploit that culture of secrecy.
My dear Diane rode to the bottom floor with me, spending many a night watching me nearly overdose. In the end, she wasn’t going to let me hide behind her when I flamed out and she didn’t.
I had been a slow motion car wreck for at least six years when I hit the psych ward and nearly a whole year after that before I gave up opiates. I am sure my friends saw it by then as well (and probably well before. I have never been accused of being an observant man). I couldn’t hide anymore.
More than anything, I took advantage of the whole ‘go along, to get along’ ethos of the US median. Eventually, I rocked the boat, and not in a good way. I wasn’t building the next big thing, which is acceptable watercraft jostling. The only thing I created was misery. I was no fun to be around even when I was alone.
By the way, if boat-rockers are only good when they raise stock prices, then I should be compensated by the Sacklers, et. al. because the pharmaceutical industry made their share off my back and by extension, the cruelty of pained ignorance.
That aside, I exploited every social loophole As long as I appeared mostly okay in public, much was tolerated in private.
Here’s the thing about appearances. At some point the private becomes public. And you can’t hide forever.
Hopefully friends and family accept your amends after standing by through it all. Hopefully the ones who are most important know it will be different.
That only happens with time as proof.
I hope I became a better person after that (though I know that is impossible. I would rather be serviceable than satisfactory anyway). In the end, I had to break my silence, but my circle did, too.
Here is the thing about support groups. It is not just fellowship. It is also an example or, at least, an echo of someone who beat back a demon.
I try not to wrestle with demons anymore. Some I tussled with more than once, but I have managed to let them go, too.
Here’s thing about demons. You can’t beat them and they only have one way of beating you. They will dual you to your death.
It may be a hard earned death, but it is a death. That has its own dark warning too. Demons win every day (every damn day in every damn way). I am not a religious man, but I know the dark cravings of the human soul. And those are a viking funeral pyre.
Here’s the thing about humans. We are really hard to beat. Somehow, we thrive in spite of the fires we might set.
Sometimes it seems like there are a million burning ships on the horizon, but most of them have lifeboats. Everybody on the lifeboat has a true understanding of what started the fire.
Hopefully it can help them see any repairs needed on the next ship. The next one may not be unsinkable either, but you will take better notice of the boiler room.
Fires extinguished or not, people keep surviving. Good example or bad, we all carry that lore from someone in our life.
Here’s the thing about communal stories. They can be roadmaps. Don’t eat this mushroom or don’t play with that demon are equally important for survival.
I suppose, as someone who carries the scars (some still raw), I can tell people it can get better. Or at least they will change.
Here’s the thing about change. You stand athwart it, for gallant or goofy reasons, but only you get to decide if you should change it or yourself.
Sooner or later (hopefully sooner), we will stop eating bad mushrooms and picking demons from the line against the other wall at our internal middle school dance.
‘Do as I say not as I do’, doesn’t work as well as being able to say ‘not as I did’. My choice in the face of horrific and life ending change was that I would rather ride into the sunset on my terms than be a body sizzling funeral boat.
Here’s the thing about burning ships. Eventually they go over the horizon, too.
Remain Lost 