24 August 2015

Addiction

I guess we are all addicted to something. My poison is chocolate. I can't be in the same room as chocolate and not eat it. It worries me until I've eaten it up. I have to hide a box of chocolates somebody has bought me or I would probably eat the whole box in one sitting. But I can go months without it, so it's under control (unless I'm in an exceedingly long queue at the supermarket and it winks at me from the checkout display!) Alcohol - I can take or leave. I love a glass of wine or a cocktail like the next person, but can count on one hand the number of glasses I consume in every two months. I used to smoke cigarettes a long time ago as a student but stopped 35 years ago. I have never taken drugs.

When you are really and truly addicted to a substance, it is hard to ignore. No matter how much people tell you you are going to die from it, you cannot see that. You can only see that your body is crying out for more and craves it so much that dying is far less of a problem than the craving. You need it and you need it NOW. (Greg wanted nothing more than to stop drinking but try as he might, he could not, even with professional help. )You know you are hurting the loved ones around you and you gladly want to stop for their sake if not your own, but the craving pushes you on to your next fix.... and the next..... and the next. You lose your family, your friends, your job, your money, your home and you eventually hit rock bottom, where you either claw your way back to recovery or surrender to the grim reaper.

The following  is a song written by Rick Hale who has lost a brother to addiction. I think the song and video beautifully encapture what it is like to be an addict or live with an addict. The video contrasts the present with the addict as a child in a family setting. The words are below.....


The muffled sound of old regrets
Burning out like cigarettes
Halfway gone and half to go

Fill the air with darkened haze
And all my empty yesterdays
Have brought me down a deeper low

And I can hardly breath it in

Chorus
What if there’s no end at all?
How much further can I fall?
Getting higher as my life’s descending

Something’s taken over me
I’m not the man I used to be
And I can’t take it if it’s never-ending


I know it’s hard to understand
You’ve only breathed it second-hand
But never walked inside these shoes

You hope someday I turn around
When I’ve crashed against the ground
And I have nothing left to lose

Chorus


Trace the marks across my skin
Laying draped around my frame
They tell the story of my sin
But you turn your back and wash your hands of all my shame

Chorus

5 comments:

Flowerpot said...

Well I was addicted to cigarettes which I gave up 20 years ago but giving up was SO HARD. I had never realised that what I thought was my best friend (nicotine) was in fact a lying, cheating crook. But I am so glad I gave it up and never looked back. Loved the video Addy X

the veg artist said...

Crisps are not safe from me. Chocolate, wine etc - all can sit, opened or not, for ages. I have never smoked a cigarette. I was a child in the days when a parent could send us to the corner shop for a packet, and we would be served quite happily, the shopkeeper knowing that we were just running errands. At age 10 or so I remember thinking that it was a stupid way of burning money that could be spent on other things!

Working Mum said...

If you just think how strong hunger pangs are when you haven't eaten for a while, that must be what addiction is like - impossible to ignore. I have great admiration for anyone who has managed to overcome an addiction like smoking as I saw my dad do it (three times before he was fully off the weed). At least cigarettes are less and less visible now than they were when I was young, but alcohol is so much more prevalent and acceptable in society, so harder to avoid. And as for people with eating disorders or food addictions - it's not like you can just give up eating to solve the problem, is it?
Now I'll just return to my addiction - homemade fudge!

Nota Bene said...

Milk gums and marshmallows. Fatal.

GOOOOOD ol Rockytop... rockytop tennesseeeeee! said...

Enjoyed your post. Chocolate does me in...