Notes on Addiction
They say you can get addicted to anything, and I know that’s true, because as soon as I quit drinking, I go into an all-you-can-eat chocolate coma. This time, I’m not sure when I’ll come out. Most alcoholics go to detox but I have a dog to take care of, betting God is stronger than any force of my will, been playing my cards right on the outside, can’t lock me away from my brain in there anyhow. That’s the part making me crazy now, my stinking thinking, ticking away the hours that make up these dry days. God help us all.
I was given two tools in the American school system - Abstinence ONLY! And JUST SAY NO! But I said of course, I shall try, and try I did. My therapist says I have emotional road rash and those bullies kept throwing salt in the wound, well I found a cure for that! Wouldn’t you know my numbing agent made those problems a whole lot worse? Girl done grown up and made a fancy wreck out of herself!
Afterwards I think we should sit down and talk about this education I received, a programming of sorts, setting me up for some kind of failure. I’m not blaming anyone, but with the Opioid Epidemic, marijuana legalized in half the States, and meth as the ugliest and deadliest killer of Americans (nay the World) running rampant, wouldn’t we say Nixon’s ill-defined “War” has been miserably lost, lest conceded? Could you say it’s time to reevaluate? I’d like some better information, please.
I’ll tell you what that all-or-nothing approach got me. Shame, secrecy, isolation, and a whole lot more problems. Lucky I’m just a closet alcoholic or I’d be deader than a door-nail years ago. What about the rest of ‘em? What are we doing for them? Shove them off on some methadone, eh? Where do all the lonely people go? Hardly any mental health facilities to speak of. Funnel them into jails and prisons, forced sobriety without tools for rehabilitation, released into the world again more isolated than they went in. HELP PLEASE. We’re clearly incapable of solving our own problems.
Does it really matter if White Collar Rick reaches for Adderrall while Blue Collar Chris gets high on cocaine? (Or was it vice-versa?) A drug by any other name might be called Vivance or meth, both get the job done and then some. Do you prefer sitting there in superiority, pretending you’re not numbing too? Making so much money on fair labor’s backs while we slowly fade into the system that raised us?
Let’s pretend we don’t live in black-and-white, or even all the grays. I dream we live in technicolor, where only God names the nature of my sin, already forgiven. Let’s imagine a future where your laws protect and serve both the justice breakers and makers equally. I think we can do better. Surely we can do better than this.
“Most of life happens in the messiness, not on the mountain.”
-Kenny Green
Editorials are attributed exclusively to Hype Girl Media and may not be reproduced without prior authorization nor associated with unnamed individuals or entities.