Addiction

Well addictions. Hmmmm. Imo, since it IS my blog after all… have their roots in unresolved, underlying trauma – generational, and repeated in our childhood. Addictions shorten so my beautiful lives. My father was addicted to alcohol and died of complications when I was 13. I barely knew the man. Tragic. I hated him for it! I didn’t know then that he was probably doing the best he could. I have heard many a voice utter, “It was an accident, he/she didn’t mean to die” Now, personally, I think that’s a fucking cover up, a fucking joke. Something we say to feel better. Unless someone held a gun to their head every time and made them use, I’m not buying that shit for one hot second. The substance didn’t jump into your mouth vein or nose by itself, nah, not at all.

The sad fact is that so many humans do not want to BE HERE. If you’re abusing drugs or alcohol there is a strong feeling of “I don’t give a shit if I live or die” – it’s a risk you are willing to take. Everyone knows this going in. It’s no fucking secret. Well we, as a society are adverse to that school of thought. We don’t really want to take a deep, hard look at the plausible reasons why people don’t want to continue living. We don’t really want to consider that so-in-so is in such agonizing emotional pain that he/she would rather off him/herself rather than face more of this sucky life.

I think we’d rather make the SUBSTANCE bad and wrong. It’s easier. There’s someone/something to blame. Blaming the substance at the funeral rather than admit that the deceased was a sad fucking mess their entire life because of generational trauma and needed more and more substance to keep the inner demons away. Drugs and alcohol are bad, right? No they’re not. It takes a human to activate them.

Given a simple glance towards my ridiculous past, complete with serious mental illness, sexual and substance abuse and the shortened lives of the generations before me, one would surmise that I SHOULD (knock on wood) be extremely ill by now, if not dead and without a doubt, dependent on substance…If you’re someone who thinks that illness, as a rule of thumb, “just happens” to us then you might want to stop reading here.

Oh, ok, we shall continue… I’ve never subscribed to victim mode. This woe-is-me garbage is not appealing. Not quite my size to expect others to look kindly on me and make my life easier because I’ve been through so much, poor helpless me… Vomit. Take care of me, take pity on me. Vomit again. I’m a fighter, taking my life, freedom, body, confidence and spirit – BACK and cutting the “offenders” out one by one.

Substance would have been a wonderfully delicious escape for me. If…. If I hadn’t reached, crawled and scratched my way to help. The easier path would have included pulling all my hate and rage inward to kill my self further. To numb myself with substance so I didn’t have to feel the trauma over and over and over. Riddled with crushing anxiety – I was ripe for addiction. BUT I NEEDED to be in control, I needed to be in control. I needed to be victorious! None of the trauma I experienced was because of me. I was deeply aware of this. I was well aware that I did nothing to cause it. I was abused because I existed. I knew I was surrounded by some seriously fucked up people – even as a small child, I knew this. I was wiser, more intuitive, present and intelligent  than the dark, disgusting energy around me.

I wanted to live my best life without these suffocating family attachments. I wanted to slowly cut off the oxygen fueling my crazy family of origin. Alcohol would have been lovely – to kill the shatter that was unfolding inside of me. To slay the beasts in my nightmare of a life. To kill the crazy torment of flashbacks and ice cold terror triggers.

YESSSSS, I can completely understand the draw to substance. Trust. I completely get it. I understand the shame, the self loathing, the body detachment and disregard for your own safety. I seriously would have thrown myself on the tracks if it hadn’t been for my internal drive to “win” and bulldoze anyone who wanted me to play “small” still.

Addiction is a choice. Substance is a brilliant choice to silence the terror, depression, shame, guilt that comes from emotional, physical, sexual abuse. The use of substance gets out of control as we try to kill-off the parts of ourselves that we have no tolerance for. Eventually, we need more and more substance to drown out the voices. Ironically, purposefully or not – flirting with suicide. If anyone is to BLAME for addiction, it’s the shitty humans who inflict abuse on others and kill the happy-go-lucky child in us. Murder, over and over, this beautiful child’s spirit when he/she shows up for love and attention.

This is clear to me how this all works but of course to agree/consider this notion, you have to be willing to accept your own baggage and also be willing to uncover the truth of your early years. This is where the answers are. This is where sobriety lives but it’s buried under all the bullshit trauma. We may blame our addictions on divorce, a shitty boss, an injury, loss of a friend or some other ridiculously recent circumstance we have acquired along our path.

I will NEVER, EVER find alignment with “Addiction is a disease” “Victim of opioid crisis”. Simply put – drugs and the effect they will bring you, will be incredibly alluring if you have very good reason to escape reality. If your reality is such that you are running to keep away from the trauma that is bubbling up inside of you and you can no longer keep it down – substance is an absolutely brilliant choice. Brilliant.

How bout this shit for starters? Let’s start a campaign to end trauma – let’s make it safe to talk about. Let’s support each other. Just normal people sharing and leaning on each other. People who know, not buttoned up professionals with agendas and rules on appropriate expression. How bout we focus on healing generations. Christ! Let’s stop blaming the user, lets stop blaming the substance. When I see addicts I immediately think, wow, the trauma he or she must have been through….absolutely tragic and saddening….and my heart is touched by their struggle, by their unwavering commitment to silencing the destructive thoughts and voices so they can live life the best way they are able.

Let’s just stop enabling people and start some conversations that matter.   Lets’….