Before you read this I want to start with a couple of notes:
1) I do not, anymore, condone this behavior. This is just so that non-addicts/users might understand what is keeping us in our addiction/using.
2) This has just been my experience, everyone’s is different but I am sure they would pretty much agree to an extent.
What it feels like and why we keep doing it
I guess I should start out with why one starts using in the first place; at first it is just a curious thing. We don’t see the bad or that we could possible become addicted. We see our “friends” using and how good they feel and how much fun they are having, at that time. So we try it, we feel good, we are not thinking about anything else but the good, the right here right now, the best we have ever felt. This is why we continue to use. The emptiness we feel in ourselves is finally filled. No more thinking we are not good enough, no more thinking that we are nothing or nobody. No more feeling weak or unworthy. In all honesty no more feeling at all. Every bit of pain from our past, every bit of hurt is gone. We don’t have to think about who or what hurt us in the past. We don’t have to think about anyone or anything, we can just live.
For a minute I want you to imagine the feeling you get from the one thing that interests you the most. Think about a difficult project you have completed and the feeling of pride and self worth you got from it when finished. Imagine what it feels like to be the smartest person in the world. Remember the most excited and energetic you’ve ever felt in your life. Take all of these things and multiply them by a thousand and that is what we feel like on a daily basis. We get the feeling that every decision we make is 100 percent correct. When we start a project we get so involved with it that we get the feeling of completion before it is even finished. We have a heightened self-confidence and self-esteem we have a feeling of being able to conquer the world.
Then it gets bad, we try to go a day without using, heck we try to go an hour without using. But we can’t we have become so dependant on the drug that when the pain, hurt, and lost feeling from our past comes back we can’t deal with it on our own. We don’t know what to do or how to cope with it, so we go back to the only thing that we know how to do right and that is get high. After awhile we can’t even do that right, we have to do more, what we started out with isn’t enough.
When you look at us we look lost, confused, and lonely. And we are. But not in this world. We are lost in our own; we are looking for that door out. To get back to the life that we had before that now doesn’t seem so bad to us. One day we might find that door and when we do we will walk though it and for a little bit everything will be ok. We will be in the euphoria stage of sober ness. We feel high on life! We have never felt better and we are looking forward to this new sober life. And then reality hits, something goes wrong and we think, “well hell if things like this are going to happen when we are sober we might as well be high” that’s because we know how to handle problems when we are high, WE DON’T!!! But when we are sober we have to face them and deal with them head on and it hurts and its difficult and it just plain sucks. That’s where we can either be our own worse enemy or our saving grace.
We can let the problem get the best of us and go back to using, of course we know if we do we will get the looks of “you are a no good piece of trash, nothing but a junkie” but that’s ok with us because we don’t care we are high and are comfortable and know how to handle this place. OR we can keep on going, knowing that it will get tough and that we can make this and something way better then what we were getting is out there. But we have to realize that we can’t do this alone. It might take us MANY falls (relapses) before we come to this realization but when we do and we see that there are people that care and want to help us, we feel loved and great and know that we can do this.
I don’t know exactually why I decided to write about this, I just felt I needed to. I don’t think people truly understand what kind of hold drugs have over us. They think that we can just quit and be ok. But it is not that easy. I have been an addict for 12 years and have tried to stop for 10 of those years, but I couldn’t do it alone. But no matter how much you show the addict in your life that they are not alone, that you love them, that you will help them. They won’t see it. This disease is horrible and frighten. Just keep showing them without enabling them, we will get mad, but sooner or later we will hit out “rock bottom” and see what is right in front of us for all these years. Everybody’s rock bottom is different, sometimes it is death-we have to accept that-but sometimes we will take death over what we feel inside. And if the rock bottom is death, they are not suffering anymore, and then they will see that they were loved and that they had everything they needed. But they will not be feeling pain anymore. I am sorry for all the people that have lost a loved one to addict death. But sometimes that’s the only way out. When I was in my addiction and could not find a way out I envied the ones that lost the battle and was looking for my day. But now I know another way and I hope and pray that other addicts will find it to. When the door finally opens we hope that it stays shut forever, but there is a “come back soon” sign on it and we have to decide if it’s a world that needs to be revisited or taken out of business forever.
