The World, through the Lies of an Addict

“The World, Through the Lies of an Addict”

Obviously no two addicts are the same, yet we all share several common denominators. For starters, we all somehow ended up believing in order to avoid life’s problems, low points, and just feeling sad we could just simply self medicate. For some that’s through a prescription pad and a doctor’s signature. For others, it’s through a street level drug dealer and for the remaining, it’s a combination of both. Nonetheless, we’ve been taught since a young age that mental illness is real, and there’s no shame in seeking help when you no longer feel like you can go on. Is this true? Absolutely! But, where does the line get drawn? For instance, I lose my job, go through a divorce, and just have an overall negative outlook on life. I no longer can get excited about anything, I lack motivation to change the way things are going, and I just feel defeated! Understandably those events would typically be enough to depress anyone. Shouldn’t we be depressed about things of this nature mounting in our life? So, there lies the question for me, when do we use those shortcomings and depressing times as motivation to do better? Anyone should be depressed for good reason under certain circumstances.. Or when do we say oh your life is complicated because of choices and decisions you're making so here’s a pill to help you not feel the emotion it’s putting on you? It’s hard to draw a line as to where just dealing with life and learning to overcome obstacles and tribulations. And also when to medicate in order to not have to feel so much pain from our current circumstances? The answer? No one knows, that is because everyone's mind is different, it handles and views things from their own perspective. You develop coping mechanisms and ways to deal with emotional, impactful events in your life. Unfortunately, when you start self medicating pre-teen to early teen you never learn a lot of basics you need to understand and cope with the situation.

From the time your old enough to remember, you see beer and liquor commercials giving us the impression that drinking those beverages after a long, hard , exhausting week will somehow lift our spirits, bring us gorgeous partners of the opposite sex, and make us the popular person. Just like every commercial we’ve ever seen that asks if we're feeling down? If life is just too much? Do we sleep too much? If you answered yes to any then our pill is made for you! Were convinced from the time we were young that these ideologies and socially accepted things are normal. So what’s wrong with this ideal of thinking? Nothing if everything works out exactly as it should. Let’s get real though…not everyone can afford to see a dr. monthly. Or has a support system. There are several reasons people avoid Dr.’s. Such as shame, embarrassment, guilt, or many other feelings. I have been a struggling addict for at least 23 of my 35 years on this earth. I know from firsthand experience that if I want something or desire something bad enough that I will do everything in my power to obtain it! Giving up is not an option, as an addict I have overcome obstacles unimaginable to the normal person to get what I want or need. The issue for me is finding the same motivation to better my life and circumstances. I get very frustrated that I can't find the same drive and motivation as if I were needing to get high, to better my life. If we as humans would put a fraction of the energy we do to get our “fix” or please our personal vice as keeping ourselves healthy and only making choices that were best for us, the results would be incredible. I always use the 2 minute drill in football games as an analogy. For those non sports fans, in the last two minutes when a game is on the line and the team needs to cover the whole field in less than 2 minutes! It’s amazing the results and how well they’re run in that time. You hear people say, (guilty myself) why don’t teams play that hard and motivate the entire game? Because it’s not practical, circles back to the fight or flight way or thinking, or that one last effort in desperation. When everything is on the line! That’s the way an addict's mind functions everyday! Life as we know it may stop if we don’t get this next buzz, or at least get it lined up!

I can't speak on anyone's behalf except my own. But in my mind growing up, I had this false belief and ideal that life just came with a nice job, big truck or nice car, beautiful wife, white picket fence surrounding a two story house. I understood you had to work for these things, but there were certain things such as those just mentioned, that I almost felt like were just part of life. As if they just come with it, Sounds extremely childish and naive, and looking back I must say it was. But growing up I played sports, my father always said I wouldn’t have to worry about working after school for a vehicle as long as I played sports because I wouldn’t have time. I was fascinated by this idea and held onto it strongly. In a sense this was part of where I found my motivation and drive. That is until my dad came home and announced he was leaving our family and filing for divorce and that we’d understand when we got older. I still have yet to this day to understand. But for my peace of mind, I’m ok with that and have accepted it. Anyways, my point is, it gave me a false sense of what life should and would be. Reality was about to slap me in the face.

If you’ve read my prior article, you know I am definitely an addict to anything that alters my mind or way of thinking. To be more specific, when I was high, regardless of what I was using, I felt calmness, feelings of contentment, I had no worries. At least when I started using that’s how it was. And a few years into my addiction. I always thought I had control. I was so consumed with being good with the ladies and having a gorgeous woman on my arm, and portraying that I had money, and so much of it, that in my mind I would convince myself of these things. When I would get a large quantity of drugs on credit, or for those of you not familiar, a front, meaning I owed money for it. I would have these visions of how I was going to flip this and make this, and I would have x amount of money to purchase more and make more. I was forever more lying to myself and living a fantasy. The reality of the situation was more like, start the evening out with a large amount of drugs, weigh out what I needed to sell in order to pay my debt plus pocket some. It always started out good, with good intentions. That is until the amount I had set aside for personal use was gone, and I was then telling myself well I’ll just take this much out of my profit and no more. Then once that was gone, I would start the mind games, convincing myself that maybe my bags of drugs were too heavy and could have a little out of each taken. Or that the product was pure enough that I could cut it with a filler to make more actual product. Even though I went through this very cycle literally millions of times, I would still somehow convince myself every time. Eventually even knowing in the back of my mind the probability was very unlikely, I’d go down the same rabbit hole. This is what addicts do. We have to convince ourselves we have a plan, or a way out so to speak. It helps our anxiety filled minds to be at ease for those short periods of time. As an addict, you spend a good portion of your time lying to yourself, or twisting something to meet our expected outcome or our ideal of peace of mind. We do this repeatedly, over and over again, time and time again. Myself personally, might change one little aspect of it, that way it was a new plan, or a better evolved plan. There were times when I owed people large amounts of money and had no way of coming up with it, I would come up with some of the most elaborate stories and scenarios one could ever imagine. To either buy myself more time, or totally excuse the debt. I won’t go into detail, as my point is not to glorify the schemes, lies, deceit, and just plain bullshit I would convince those around me to believe. My point is just to give an ideal of the lengths we will go to in order to get what we wanted.

People have the misconception that drug addicts come from troubled homes, abusive homes, homes of parents that are addicts, Which is often true, but as an addict myself, i'm here to tell you that this is not always the case at all. We all have the ability to paint whatever picture we’d like about our personal life’s and accounts. Meaning even the kid who has everything and lives the greatest life, can somehow twist it into being a hard, unfair life. Only we can measure the happiness of our lives. Anyone can portray they’re living their best life, while in reality they’re dying inside. We learn to adapt and overcome. Or that’s what we try to teach. We only see the positive and upside to what we want. Same for the negative. We can paint any picture in our mind to fit our criteria. The next person may have a totally different perception. As an addict, and from my past, I can paint a picture to make those feel bad for me, or that I had a rough childhood. I can also be real about it, and tell you that I grew up in a middle class American family. A nice house, never wore raggedy clothes to school. Never needed for much of anything, other than the typical b/s a kid thinks they need. I had a pretty normal childhood. My parents got a divorce when I was 13. That was a major setback for me, and to this day I have questions I have never addressed about the whole situation. But, for my peace of mind and sanity. I have moved on and now face my own personal demons and progressive monsters. Demons and monsters that I welcomed in at one point. No addict, and I do mean no addict regardless of what they say, starts out using and says I hope I am powerless to this drug or substance at some point, I hope it costs me friends, family, finances, jobs, and so much more. We all start off with the thinking that it won’t be us. We're just using occasionally, or just a bit to take the edge off. All in fun. I mean after all, everyone is doing it. For some, we experiment and move on to the next chapter, for others, we dive into a whole new dark side of life that will soon consume us and have a say in every aspect of your life in one way or another. Life is easiest to accept and deal with problems when we can lay blame on someone or something. Humans have always and probably always will have trouble with accountability. You know that thing they teach you in school, forgetting your homework is not being accountable. Well as you know, that carries over into so many more aspects of our lives. If someone else is to blame or the reason something negative happened, then we don’t have to have it weigh on our conscience or think about it much. Because we separate ourselves from it, or distance at least enough to not have to think about it. Because well, it was their fault. This is a way of coping and dealing with life’s obstacles. Minimizing and this accountability go hand in hand. Everyone does it at some point, but for an addict, this is everyday thinking. When I was placed on probation and could no longer smoke marijuana regularly I started drinking heavily. If you would have asked me years ago in the depth of my addiction why I was an alcoholic? Not only would I have believed it, but I would have confidently said it was probation that turned me into an alcoholic. Only now do I see how crazy that is. But at one point, I truly believed that. Everything going wrong around me in my life, my relationships, and anything else was all in part because of someone else or something else to blame that caused it. Even when discussing my addiction, I find myself to this day sometimes laying blame on situations or scenarios surrounding my life.

How I evolved as an addict, I'm still to this day trying to wrap my head around, but I do know enough to know a lot of excuses and not allow myself to be held accountable. Blaming others for my shortcomings, my laziness, my cowardly ways of thinking. Addiction has taken so much from me. Much that I will never get back. But I choose not to dwell on that. As I have so much more to work towards and strive for. What I can say is my addiction has literally robbed me of several years I will never get back, missed opportunities, failed relationships, financial burdens, deceit, lies, and so much more! If I can help anyone, even one person understand the cycle of this vicious progressive monster, then I will feel it was all for something. It’s never too late to become a better person. It would be easy for me to sit here and think, well i’m 35 what’s the point, so much wasted and missed out on. But what would I be doing? Making excuses and laying the foundation for more of my bullshit. And having justification about doing so. That’s the easy way, the road most traveled because right now, at this current time, it would be much easier. It’s difficult admitting you were a piece of shit for so many years, that you let something in a bag or a bottle rob you of so much. Keep in mind though, during our worst time, we are convinced we have it under control. We're only making exceptions for it, we're not letting it control us, we are simply just inviting it in for our pleasure then we will see it out. The problem is, we never usually depart from it. That’s the part of the story that never gets written for many. And unfortunately for some it shows them the door, what I consider the easy way out. Let’s be real, life is anything but easy and kind. It could care less about your depression, your sadness, your circumstances, it stops for no one. One thing is for sure, everyone's ideal of a happy life, success, meaningfulness, and several other things are different. What I may consider a happy life, you many consider misery. It's different for everyone. So, how do we define happiness? We simply do not, don’t measure happiness, because you’ll never find it. Happiness is within yourself, being at peace with who you are. Feeling like you’ve done your best at the end of the day. We can’t measure it based on society's manifestation or none would ever be happy. In fact, I believe it is society's fault for so much depression and feelings of failure. In today's age, social media makes us all believe we live in a fairy tale of only highlights! When in reality, we all know the dark days that sometimes come to show itself and haunt us. The emotional rollercoaster and overwhelming anxiousness brought on by yet another routine day. We all walk around with so much bottled up. We’ve been taught we shouldn’t show emotion because it makes us look vulnerable. Like less of a person so to speak. Or that we show too much, I would like to suggest a happy medium. One only you measure in your own eyes. Please do not ever be convinced that crying or showing emotion is wrong or a sign of weakness. This life definitely has a way of kicking our asses and handing them to us. Sometimes you just have to let it out. Some seek a high power, some seek a fast food combo, some seek the adrenaline of stealing something, and as you know, some seek a substance or liquid to mask and somewhat numb the raw emotions we are ill equipped to deal with.

In my honest opinion, there is no set methodology for getting sober, no tricks, no secrets. It’s simple, I believe sometimes too simple for us to grasp. In order for us to gain anything or make progress, we are much more prone if we can see the results. If we see that our sacrifices are paying off. You're probably thinking to yourself, well not using isn't a sacrifice, that’s a blessing. That depends on who you are talking to. For many of us, getting sober is terrifying, it’s a whole new world that we’ve in every way possible avoided for days, months, sometimes years. Some cannot do it on their own. They are not mentally strong and stable enough to withstand the power our addiction has over us. So many people quit using their main vice, for example the cocaine addict quits using. When in reality, he may have simply substituted his cocaine for alcohol, or opiates. Possibly even something such as food, or sex. Point being, we in a sense did conquer one obstacle, but if in the process we pick another habit up, are we really winning the battle? I guess that’s when it comes down to the physical and emotional damage you are putting yourself through. We all like to think we have plenty of time. I have yet to meet someone I was getting high with that said I only have a day or two so I’m just going to be carefree. How many loved ones or people you may have been acquainted with have overdosed and their addiction cost them their life? The ultimate price, sad as it may be and I'm not minimizing the loss of anyone under any circumstances. But keep in mind, the addict, the user, the monster that consumed us has always been there. The chance of going too far, or getting bad dope was always a possibility. Think about that for a minute, and the psychology behind that. Only then may you get a glimpse of how sick and powerless an addict truly is. How many people would go to the doctor for a routine procedure if the doctor told us beforehand, there's a 50/50 chance this will go wrong and you may not make it. No one would go to the dr, at least not the mentally saine. We would weigh the risk and reward and quickly decide it wasn’t worth it. That’s the normal thinking process. For an addict, yes it crosses our mind, we know the risk, but we mask and minimize it by telling ourselves that's not happening to me. It’s amazing that we have the ability to convince ourselves when it’s necessary to get what we want. As I’ve stated before, as addicts lie to themself, more than anyone around them. They hate themselves more than anyone around them hates them. We lie in bed at night sometimes sober, other times high as a kite and go back and forth in our heads minimizing or trying to find excuses for why we use. The last thing anyone wants to admit is that they are powerless to a substance. If I totalled every dime ever spent that was attributed to drinking or drug use, I would literally be ill. Just the sheer thought of what I’ve wasted or blown in a matter of seconds makes my body quiver.

One very important thing is not to dwell on your past. Learn from it, use it to make better decisions, to recognize triggers and weaknesses. But never, and I do mean ever beat yourself up to the point of feeling like there’s no reason to try and fix the damage we’ve done. Once you take that path of pity and regret, it’s literally a slippery mountain side to try and get out of. That way of thinking will only cause you to dive deeper into your addiction. You’ve heard the term rock bottom one time or another I'm sure. You may even have what you consider a definition of it. But no one's rock bottom is the same as others. I literally almost was paralyzed from an accident, Couldn’t hold my only child for months as an infant. That would have most likely broken any man's spirit and will, for me it was just the tip of the iceberg. It was only when I woke up, exhausted, riddled with alcohol poisoning, (another normal day) dehydrated, mentally exhausted, physically broken, that I looked at my last fifth of brandy, and my daughter, and for the first time ever said I’m done, I promise. I had said it millions of times, but this time was different. I poured the bottle down the drain, this was following a three day binge. That was the first time in my entire life I was holding the power. I decided I was tired, knocking on death's door. And also didn't want to be remembered as a father who was always drunk or high and making a fool of himself. As I continue with these stories and periods of my life, low points, tragic events brought on by drug and alcohol abuse, you will start to see the addict unfolding. You will gain insight to how it manifested. How it went from fun to necessity. From the thing to do, to substance abuse. My timeline of events is closely aligned with actual periods and events, but all will always be true and factual. I may jump ahead 4 years into my addiction, then back 2. So bare with me and keep in mind, Usually I was so far gone I couldn’t hold my head up, or vica versa, couldn't lay it down. So I try to recall approximate ages and times as accurately as possible. I appreciate anyone and everyone who took the time to read my material. I apologize for the types in some parts of my first stories. I am evolving and finding my purpose as I go. I appreciate you coming along for the journey and am hopeful you may be able to tab into a side of yourself you haven’t discovered. Or possibly use something you read in my babbling that helped you, or even enlightened you. Feel free to send me any questions or comments. I welcome all, even the negative. This is all new for me as well, a sober life is a new life. A new way. A new direction, a new day! I hope you will subscribe and click the heart on my stories, all views contribute to earnings and make it easier to find time to write more. I look forward to the next story. Until then, thank you again!