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What You Know

By kpPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 3 min read
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Photo by Jonathan Gonzalez on Unsplash

Apple juice. VeggieTales. Grape juice. Olive fingertips. Saturday mornings.

Visiting the library and reading stacks. Climbing trees. Scooby-Doo and the gang.

Macaroni and cheese with beef. Pokemon cards. Grinding against solid objects.

Gems and stones. Dad’s apple pie. Heavily filtered nonfiction. Sunday mornings.

Doing nothing but swimming. Every rock of interest. Puka shell necklaces. Hemp jewelry.

Masturbation. Church camp. Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. Netflix. Swiss cake rolls.

Writing camp. The Amanda Show. Steak fries. Snickers. Facebook. Soy lattes.

Sex with women. People watching. Marlboro Reds. Cannabis in a glass pipe.

Coca-Cola with ice and no straw. Vicodin. Margaritas. Hulu. Instagram.

Black coffee. Whiskey Sour. Djarum Black.

Loving women. Cannabis in a zig zig. Tramadol. Stoli.

Creatine. Pre-workout. Thermogenic fat burners. Whey protein. Prosecco.

Strawberry rhubarb pie. Flexeril. Acetaminophen and codeine. Cannabis in a bong. Jameson.

Red Eye. Adderall. Consuming all free time with work. Cannabis in a blunt. Maker’s Mark.

Cannabis sweets. Mead. Stick ‘n’ pokes with India ink. Jose Cuervo. Xanax. LSD. Whip-its.

Prime Video. Single speeds. American Spirit Blue. Ketamine. Tanqueray.

Cannabis distillates. Doppio. Hand-rolled cigarettes. Malbec. Redemption Bourbon.

Nine-speeds. Hendrick’s Gin. Aquavit. Neck-ties. Pen and ink.

There is something peculiar about the addict aware of the addiction.

Something that operates in a way unrecognizable to the addicted mind that is unaware. Something that grounds the aware addict, allowing them to see the instability and still feel they have a consistent place. Without this thing, the aware addict would not be.

The unaware addict’s mind is ignorant of grievance but never secure in the tumult.

It is when the unaware addict learns what an addict is and what they look like that dis-ease can build a home. When they cannot envision a trajectory separate from that of the addict when they see the loss of self characteristic of the active addict and the personal salvation found in the recovering addict, a sort of fatalism takes root. One way or the other, the prospects are that of an addict. This new outlook renders either a complete succumbing to misery and the troublesome behaviors it brings or the beginning of efforts to change.

A synonym of make, “render” is to cause to become.

To render a house is to place cement on the exterior or even interior bricks of the standing walls. The result is an intentionally smoothed or textured surface according to the plasterer’s particular intention and influence on the materials.

As you might think, the benefit of this process is more than an aesthetic one; the rendered surface is protected from cracks and erosion and can stand years longer than if the character had been unaffected.

Rendering to a chef is removing fat from meat to reveal an entirely new resource for cooking.

When one renders in life, they are creating, either building and fortifying or reducing to useful tallow.

Recognizing our foundational discontent allows it to settle more deeply in the liver, mixing with catalase to remove poison to us, or the lungs, absorbing into our blood to circulate new gospel. A reframing occurs. The aware addict emerges from the heat of this reaction, this further scrutiny, still an addict but reformed. Reforming. Failing and succeeding with this change in perpetuity.

Understanding the discontent as something before this addiction helps the aware addict see that it could and has been anything manifesting as their specific addiction throughout life. It was in the expansive collection of rocks and gems. In the compulsively ordered pokemon cards. The days spent in books. The coffee-stained teeth. The hours in rehearsals. The food. The regard. The perfection. The sex. Before it was ever the drugs. All distractions from a compromised home that has our attention now.

Perhaps it’s inaccurate to say dis-ease settles more deeply upon its recognition. It might be more precise to say that it can be experienced since what is being felt is finally understood. It is no longer the ignorance of self-loathing leading the addict barefoot and unarmed through the Cedar Forest.

addictionadvicebipolarcopingdepressiondisordereatingfamilyhumanitylistmedicinepersonality disorderrecoveryselfcarestigmasupporttherapytraumatreatments
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About the Creator

kp

I am a non-binary, trans-masc writer. I work to dismantle internalized structures of oppression, such as the gender binary, class, and race. My writing is personal but anecdotally points to a larger political picture of systemic injustice.

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