“The Addict Response”

In the fall after I turned 20, I went through a series of unfortunate events that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Before those events, I would occasionally smoke a cigarette. After going through all that I went through that fall, I was a full-blown smoker. One time, not long after, I was dating a woman; then met another and realized how unhappy I was with the one I’d been seeing. So I got drunk. And there was another occasion where I remember very specifically thinking about how life was going to fuck me over no matter what I did, so I might as well be loaded.

These examples from my early 20s are just a few examples of the Disease playing itself out in my life. In general, I could fix/use/get loaded for any reason, good or bad. But I definitely did it in response to discomfort. (Hm... that’s a really sterile word to describe feeling that life is going fuck you over no matter what you do). I remember thinking how that was what people did. If shit happened, you got fucked up and that was how you dealt with it.

Almost as an aside, here, I want to admit that I really have no idea where I got this crazy impression. No one in my home used growing up (this is not to say the Disease wasn’t present, but that’s another story). I wasn’t around any active addicts or alcoholics that I noticed. I don’t remember anyone ever telling me that that was what you did. Maybe I got the idea from TV or movies?? I really don’t know.

But it makes sense to me now that I should think this way. This is the addict response to life. An inability to accept life on life’s terms. Something happens that I don’t know or don’t want to deal with? Get loaded; escape. I’m feeling a way that I don’t like or don’t want to feel? Get loaded; escape; get out of self. Whatever it takes, just don’t actually do anything about the situation or the feelings. Definitely don’t accept them and follow through on the ramifications. Ignore. Deny. Find a way to blame somebody or something else, whatever it takes!

And even now, I know the Disease is still with me. Every once in awhile someone will ask me if don’t sometimes feel like just having a drink or two. Don’t you feel like just getting loaded once? Just one more time? I always have to laugh at that, because no—no, I don’t feel like that. I don’t want to have a drink or two—I want to get hammered. I mean, that’s why people drink, right? No, I don’t want get high one last time, just have a quick hit, or whatever—I want to get fucking blasted and I want to be blasted 24/7.

That yearning to reach for any substance (the specifics aren’t important) to avoid dealing with life or take me out of my self, to escape what I’m feeling or what’s happening, that yearning never really goes away. I may not physically reach for the stuff, but my brain still does. I don’t think about getting just a little tipsy, I think about getting righteously plastered. That’s how I can know without a doubt that the Disease is still there. Because getting a little altered doesn’t make any sense to me. At all.