Thinking about that time a coworker said that some people choose—like consciously CHOOSE—to live on the street and be drug addicts and another coworker and I chewed him out for a solid half-hour.
NO ONE on this green Earth thinks “You know what would be fun? To become so dependent on a poison that it will wreck my body, ruin my relationships, lose me my job and home, and likely kill me.”
Addiction is like…imagine you’re biking along with your friends, and one of them goads you into going down this one steep hill. For whatever reason (it sounds fun, you’re crushingly bored, you’re insecure and what to prove yourself, your legs are so tired they hurt and it sounds like a reprieve, etc) you agree. You start going down this hill and you’re flying. It’s exhilarating. The world is rushing past. The road gets bumpy. There are warning signs but you’re going too fast to read them. You go faster and faster and then you finally notice that at the bottom of the hill is a great big brick wall strewn with broken bodies and bikes.
You try to hit the brakes, and maybe you wobble but you’ve got too much speed under you to stop. You think about jumping off and see that on both sides of the path it’s a sea of cactus as far as the eye can see.
What do you do? Lay down your bike and shred yourself to ribbons on the hot asphalt and rocks, then walk, bleeding and bruised, back up the steepest hill you’ve ever seen?
Abandon the flight, jump into the cactus knowing how badly it will hurt you when you land and continue to hurt you going all the way back up that same hill?
Hang on for dear life as the road gets rougher and rougher until the quick stop at the bottom?
All life forms have an innate sense of self-preservation so it’s real damn hard to consciously choose a long road of misery and pain over momentary surcease that’s ultimately self-destructive. That is: it’s REAL fucking hard to make yourself jump off that bike and choose the godawful journey back.
Maybe your friends could help you back up the hill. But they’re the same ones who goaded you into going down here in the first place. Maybe they’re still rushing down the slope with you. Maybe they’re already at the bottom.
No one. Fucking. Chooses. This.
Addiction is always, ALWAYS a symptom of something else.
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