5 Lessons Learned

Warning: Mature content

When I was 21, I began a journey for which no one could have prepared me. I should start at the beginning. I just wanted to preface this blog post with the acknowledgment that I have told people this in the past and not everybody believes me. Whether you decide to or not is entirely your decision.

My journey with addiction started at an early age. When I say this I do not entirely mean it in the traditional sense. While in treatment there were a lot of stories that I heard. Many people began their path through addiction at an early age by partaking in the actual substance.

Apart from a few sneaked puffs of a cigarette or two, I did pretty well abstaining from substances until I was 21. Sure, I had smoked some weed and drank some alcohol before I was 21, sure. But addiction came to me from a different direction.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

Benjamin Franklin

When I was a young boy, my mother and father both experienced alcoholism as well as an addiction to nicotine. Fortunately, my mother kicked the drinking habit and focused on raising me and my twin. She still maintained the addiction to nicotine through all of those years.

There’s one time in particular that really stands out in my memories. I was probably in high school because I had a job, but this is something that happened throughout my childhood. If it wasn’t from a job, it was a Kool-Aid stand. I would make money, set it aside, and it would go missing.

At first, I would go running to my mother crying, who would explain that she needed to borrow the money but she would pay me back. Eventually, this became so routine that I didn’t get altogether too upset. Most of the time, I was giving her money for what she intended to buy anyway.

The issue was that she was broke, and she was a smoker. She needed to have her cigarettes or, as she would lovingly put it, “or else!” We had seen her without her cigarettes plenty of times, and they were never pleasant times.

Anyway, this one time in particular, she found two monetary bills that I had hidden where I thought she would never check. Within the pages of very large chapter books (I think one was the Bible) I had hidden a $5 Silver Certificate, and a $2 bill. Now, I know neither of these are worth much, they weren’t then either. I think they’re value then was about $12 or something. The point is, that was the first silver certificate I had seen in person. I wanted to keep it for posterity. It’s a part of history. Well, it was gone. My mother took both the $5 and the $2 for cigarettes. I think they cost about that much back then. Oh, I was furious!

I’ll have to admit that looking back, I am pretty proud of my mother for owning up to it like she did. She even listened to me ramble on about the importance of that $5 bill. In hindsight, I think my mother paid more than $7 for the money she took.

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I want to try to finish this all in one sitting, otherwise I’m uncertain whether or not I’ll be in the mood to continue it later. For that reason, forgive my brevity. Needless to say, addiction became a very real and very important subject in my life. So much so that I became curious about it. Young children will become curious about those things that are most prevalent in their lives, right?

There were a lot of things, not just addiction, that piqued my interest as a kid. I mean, Pokémon certainly was one of them. Another was spirituality and finding one’s purpose in life. All of these topics still hold my interest to this day. (At least I’m consistent.)

Part of researching my spirituality and trying to understand my purpose was gaining experience. I know that I could have chosen a lot of other experiences, but I chose addiction to experience. I had to know though… What would cause a parent to take hard-earned money from their own child?

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I think I was born a psychonaut. A psychonaut is someone who enjoys doing psychedelics. One of the first psychedelics that I took was ecstasy. Over the years I’ve taken this multiple times, but the first time I ever took it was the reason I picked up smoking.

I was out at a rave and rolling (term for being high on ecstasy and my friend said that smoking would feel good. I tried it a couple of times while drinking and enjoyed it, so I decided to give it a shot while under the influence of other substances. Well, it turned out that my friend was right. I enjoyed it. While I smoked over the next couple of days, he showed me the ropes.

He would tell me to smoke a cigarette when I woke up. To smoke one before bed. Smoke one after dinner. The best ones are after sex, etc. This went on for quite some time. He taught me the ropes over the next few days.

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Regardless of how I picked up an addiction over the years, they do tend to sneak up on a person. Like I said earlier, both of my parents were alcoholics. So, I should have known better and been cautious around the stuff myself, but that wouldn’t have given me a very good story, would it?

I’ve spent most of my life single. Mostly by choice, I think. Most of the time I enjoy being single, but the lack of companionship can gnaw on me at times. That’s is what caused me to go out to the bars so frequently. Despite my mother advising me not to try to find a partner in a bar, I decided that was the most appropriate place to find a partner.

Over the years, I spent a lot of time in the bars. I rarely found any deep and meaningful companionship through this. I think the only lasting companionship I gained was my addiction to alcohol. Although, I think that that may be gone now as well. I used to be able to drink people under the table, but can barely stand a beer these days. Regardless, alcoholism was a difficult addiction to overcome.

I wanted to write more on this, but I’m coming back stunted.

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There is one final addiction to substances which I haven’t covered here in this post. I would like to cover it fully someday, but I don’t know if right now is the appropriate time. That would be my addiction to methamphetamine. I want to release on that and share with others how that happened, why that happened, and what it was like. But there is so much to unpack from that journey, that this post would never end. That is why I think I might break it up into some smaller more digestible posts.

Like with the other addictions I’ve experienced, there was meaning and reasoning behind trying it.

Ah, fuck it. Excuse my language, but I think I’ll just dive into here:

So, there is an epidemic of meth use within the US right now. It stays pretty much under the radar unless you know what you’re looking for. The users and the government like it that way, I think.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, my life has been pretty lonely. While I’ve always had a generous number of friends, companionship eluded me. Well, within the gay community, the drug is often used as a sex-enhancement drug, for various reasons. I decided to partake one time during what was supposed to be a hook-up session that got derailed. And by derailed, I mean a large derailment.

Trying that substance led me down a long path. My addiction to alcohol lasted longer in time, but the addiction to meth was a longer addiction in the sense of the power it has. It takes so much away from the people that use it. It’s crippling.

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Experiencing various addictions, from substance to habitual has taught me not only a lot about the world, but a lot about myself.

5 Things I Learned About Addiction

• Addiction is different for everybody. Not only does everybody experience addiction differently, but everybody goes through and copes with it differently. Some people are very successful at curbing addictions while other people are not. I don’t believe that they should be judged any differently because of how they handle addiction.
• Each addiction is different from every other addiction. Just because you have experience with alcohol does not mean that you understand addiction to cannabis or cocaine. Having an addiction to a substance is not the same as having a gambling addiction. Every addiction is different from every other addiction.
• Denial of addiction can be deadly. One of the crucial points that I try to remember while coping with my addictions is that open and honest acceptance is not only beneficial but critical in one’s healing.
• Honesty and Self-compassion are important. Recovering from an addiction is not only difficult and challenging, but it tends to really wear down on a person after a while. Failures and mishaps happen. It is a part of recovery and is to be expected. Just because you relapse doesn’t mean that you have to give up on yourself. You can still be a success. Same with anything, it takes determination and persistence.
• It takes a village. You know the saying about raising a child requiring a village? Well, I think that it’s also true for overcoming addiction. Whether your village consists of family and friends, or simply your creator your village is crucial to change. No one triumphs over addiction alone.

Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list.

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This post primarily deals with substance addiction. As I explained, addiction takes many forms and is different for everybody. It’s important to deal with the subject with compassion and as much understanding as possible.

While I do not feel that addiction is an “illness” per se, it certainly is an affliction. It not only causes suffering on the person directly experiencing the addiction but also on the loved ones with whom the addicted person shares their life. I started this journey a relatively long time ago. While I can’t take back my actions, I do feel a lot of empathy for the suffering I’ve caused others by my actions. That was not my intention.

If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, I would. I would explain everything as I know it now. And while I would do that, I would also understand that it would not change anything. We do what we do because of the reasons we have at that time. Like someone once said, “If he’s going to use, he’s going to use. There’s no stopping him.” We make choices and those choices shape who we are, sure. But also, how we handle the consequences of those choices also makes up who we are, right?

“I have learned not to judge others. Everyone fights a hard battle we know nothing about.”

T. B. Joshua