Life As an Addict Pt.1

So I wrote this paper a while ago about being an addict. It was supposed to be a few pages to send in an email to a friend who was dealing with an addict in her life. Once I started, it turned out to be much longer. Since I have not been posting much lately, I thought I could post it, in parts of course; as it is rather long. By the way, I haven't been posting as much because I have been trying to keep busy. I have had quit a few doors open for me lately but usually only to have them slammed in my face. I am discouraged, and I don't want to write and discourage anyone from getting clean... Life is not all peaches and cream when you do get clean though. I thought it would be, it's a lot better in many ways but sometimes harder in others because I don't have substances to cover my feelings. Anyways, here is part one...

LIFE AS AN ADDICT

Life as a drug addict is not the same as any other life. Probably just like life as a millionaire isn’t the same as any other, probably just the complete opposite actually. It is at first adventurous, exciting. It gives you that feeling of “living your life on the edge” –living everything to the extreme. It may just be a small habit of doing a few lines of coke on the weekends at a party or something along these effects. But eventually and VERY quickly, the drug starts to consume your life. Your morals and values will quickly begin to disintegrate, and eventually if you continue on this path of self-destructiveness you will end up dead. Period; D.E.A.D.! There is no easy way out once you are in the cycle of using. You have to fight very hard and find it within yourself to go to battle with the demons that are eating away at your soul. They are what ultimately landed you in such a dilemma in the first place. You will, before you know it, be caught in the wrath of addiction. A “living Hell on Earth” as I have often called it. It’s got you now. It grabs your soul and starts to squeeze like a snake does to its prey. You may no longer just want to get high every now and then. You won’t get to decide if you want to just do it at the party, or if you’ll only use twice a week; no, You better pray to God/ Higher Power- (If you believe) that He holds on to you and watches over you to protect you, because you are in for a LONG, HARD ride and most of us never make it back from

  At first it seems to start out with the heavy drinking and lines here and there, hanging with the “wrong” crowd; smoking weed and sneaking around doing things you normally wouldn’t do. Eventually that crowd thins out with time, and with the heavier drugs; and those who are left will, in the end, be the “addicts.”  It isn’t long before you are using cocaine and other drugs. But coke was always the one that seemed to have its grip on you. Eventually, someone amongst the crowd decides to share their experience of smoking crack with you- the coke just wasn’t cutting it anymore. So of course, you being the one who will do anything tried it and got hooked immediately. Not like “Oh that’s pretty good,” hooked; it’s that “Give me more NOW or I’ll go crazy” hooked. Did you ever spend every single dollar you had on it? Maybe even pawned a few things to get some more?

        Everyone knows that cocaine is not, by any means, a cheap drug, so you make sure to be best friends (and sometimes even more if you are female) with the main dealers around. Being a female addict has many advantages in the addict’s world. At the end of the day, though, using your “assets” to get “free” drugs just makes you feel worse- WAY WORSE. You will quickly lose your sense of worth as a woman; you will feel more like an object, a mere puppet being passed around by a pack of wolves. Now you are not just a drug addict but now a “crack whore.”  So it turns to a viscous cycle quickly; using, feeling guilty and depressed for allowing yourself to stoop so low just to get high, and then ultimately using again to try to numb out those feelings. It is a horrible realization. There is nothing that will ever give you your “innocence” back once you have committed such acts. Time will heal these wounds- if you make it out of addiction alive, and I stress the word ALIVE.

To be continued...