Living with addiction
I was driving through a tunnel today and for a split second I closed my eyes. Time slowed down for a brief moment, and in that moment, I had all of these intense thoughts and emotions present themselves. I became aware of life that was all around me. In that second of darkness, I never felt so alive. I could actually feel the steering wheel in my hands, the way the leather felt underneath my fingertips, it felt like a symbol of my own personal struggles. It felt like I finally had a better hold on them this time around. The sun even seemed brighter than it usually does, the rays were dancing on my windshield, and I think it was the sun’s way of showing me that brighter days are always at the end of the tunnel, and in this instance, it meant it literally.
I think addiction can feel a lot like driving with your eyes closed. It feels spontaneous yet reckless, you’re moving without any real insight on where your destination will be. Eventually you will crash, because you can’t keep your eyes closed forever and expect to have a smooth ride, just like how you can’t do drugs and expect to be able to survive on them indefinitely.
Addiction was the only way I knew how to cope. It felt like an old friend, that you’ve known your whole life, and never gave up on you. And trust me, I really needed that old friend I could rely on, and if I couldn’t physically have an actual friend there for me, then I always knew addiction would be there welcoming me with open arms.
Cocaine though, it was my secret lover, that I tried so hard to impress. I would do anything for cocaine. I would spoil cocaine; I would give it whatever it wanted. If it wanted my sanity, it was theirs, if it wanted my health, it was theirs. If it wanted all of my relationships with the people that I cared most about, you already know it belonged to cocaine. Cocaine’s favorite part of me was my ambition, it knew I would always stay loyal to it. Cocaine also loved when I was skinny, it kept promising me that I would finally achieve the dream body I always wanted, I just had to quit eating, but of course it had my back because I never had an appetite anyways. We would stay up together all night until the next day, that’s how in love we were. The only thing that was allowed to come between us was alcohol. The two of them got along very well.
These two substances have had such control over me. They fed me lies, they took advantage of every situation when I wasn’t able to speak up for myself, they made life seem unbearable unless I put them above everything else. They guaranteed me a long life of euphoria as long as I threw away my future plans. And that’s what I did. I gave up and I gave in. I lost myself in the process, I became a totally different person. I didn’t even recognize myself. I would stare in the mirror, and I would slowly start to see my features fade into someone else from all of the substance abuse. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. I hurt a lot of people, and I took a lot of my anger out on them. Those are times I won’t ever get back.
I broke off the relationship I had with cocaine and I’m working on my sobriety with alcohol. I can’t really say I had much help with overcoming my addiction to cocaine, because I didn’t have many positive influences in my life at the time. It took a lot of self-control and willpower. I had to look internally and remind myself that this was fake love. This drug didn’t love me, it loved what I would do to get it. It loved the obstacles I overcame to obtain it. I had to have a lot of strength and will power to know the difference.
