This is a word-for-word transcription of a pre-dawn writing session I had recently. I wanted to leave it without editing to keep it as real and natural as possible.
For those of you who do not struggle with the tireless and insatiable force known as addiction, I would like to say one thing as a preface. Take a moment and utter a prayer of thanks to whoever or whatever god you believe in. The fact that this merciless fiend hasn’t stuck its razor sharp talons into your soul is cause for humble obeisance to your higher power. The human life is difficult enough without the beasts sulfer like breath raising the hairs on your neck constantly. Reminding at every moment the unshakable hold it has on the entirety of your life.
I couldn’t sleep, I haven’t been sleeping well either for several nights. Some might point to my propensity for caffeinated liquids far beyond their reasonable use and therefor simple function at interrupting needed sleep. However, I know better. You see, an addict is a user and they aren’t above anything, they have lost control of the decision making process at a sub-conscience level-that is before it is actually a mental decision.
The use of anything in a way that is harmful to ones life, in excess or prevention, is an addiction.
The addicted life is one of simple musings, debates, flights of fantasy, plotting, angling, subversion, selfishness, relentlessness, coverups, thirsting without satisfaction-and after all that? Do it again tomorrow. It is self flagellation, mistrust, wounding, fear, anxiety, resignation, doubt, weakness, and dependancies on things that harm and do not and could not ever heal.
Addiction doesn’t leave you alone. It is a cancer that spreads, gobbling up healthy cells with a voracious appetite that seeks only to destroy anything that resembles hope and truth, life and promise, peace and joy.
There are seminal moments of panicked understanding of what has a hold on you but you are caught in such a web of deception that every move you make only tightens its grip. In your heart somewhere is the desire to do whats right. You have a certain longing to be trustworthy-to love another without dissimulation, to emerge from the nightmare and find it wasn’t real.
But it is.
Its another day, and with the dawning of the sun you newly and freshly dedicate yourself to a fight you are in no way equipped to win. In a pathetic attempt to correct this huge ship with a puny rudder, you cannot navigate the torrents pushing you wherever the storm wishes. Over and over again you run aground in the dangerous and sharp rocked shoals. Taking water through your ships hull, stranded, overwhelmed, praying you will make it through the oncoming night alive.
But what is the point of living the way? Year after year you grapple with a faceless foe who doesn’t lose. You are now its meal, it feeds on your soul with great satisfaction. As it consumes all semblance of human life that has purpose it has completed its vile work. Your bloodied and bruised carcass begins to putrefy, an unimaginable stench fills the air all around whats left; only the most unspeakable creatures approach to consume what remains.
All the while you are fully aware what is happening. You choke on your own smell, and vomit whatever is left inside of you. Longing for death doesn’t hasten relief as you lay there incapable of lifting your head above the decomposing bodies of a multitude of those who have suffered the same fate. You are resigned now to what will happen, and so a weird kind of acceptance becomes the way you exist through what little time is left before you gladly breathe your last.
Sounds utterly hopeless doesn’t it? To the addict this is life, just hit repeat and do so a thousand times and more without hope for change and no way of escape.
Let me tell you that the addict who never quits is the most courageous person you will ever meet!
They have looked hell in the face daily, felt enough pain in a week than many do in a lifetime. But somehow have found the strength to try again, and again, and again. Its not enough to face addiction head-on..winning…losing…stalemate…but we must also fight the ignorant ho say we are week, when the exact opposite is true. We haven’t quit and we never want to. We want to be normal; I know thats subjective, but it is a valid desire.
I wonder what my adversary will do today to kill me a little bit more?
So, how to plot an overthrow of this dark, demented master plan to destroy me? Keep in mind I have lost countless battles and skirmishes already. My default as an addict is to surrender to my stronger opponent. It is a twisted life, that in knowing our time is limited just lays down on the table and aIt’sllows this sadistic surgeon to remove more of my soul. No antiseptic is needed for the addict is already sufficiently numbed to the pain. Afterwards unaware that less remains of what is vital to live.
Now, it is a battle of the mind. To have a chance the addict must acquire strength from somewhere. He has proven his solitude is a death sentence without hope of pardon. He must go outside his field of limited vision and find tools and comrades to join.
This new tactic is strange and uncomfortable-going against all his failed efforts of the past. You’d think it would be easy to transition to this larger fighting force. In his dysfunction the addict believes in going it alone and cannot see another way.
It takes a lot of strength to say,”I cannot do this anymore,” and join the army. Strength isn’t in ready supply, so a few attempts to join up fail. But through efforts that would make Hercules look like a 95 lb. weakling the addict summons the courage to enlist.
No longer fighting alone he starts to have hope for victory. He learns of strategies he had never considered, finds weapons previously unavailable to him. He closes ranks with a united and now formidable force taking back long ago surrendered ground. Confidence grows, expertise is gained, teamwork and camaraderie develops. The shared objective creates a resolute force dedicated to total and complete. This band of once inept,starving, ill-equipped soldiers is without comparison in their decimation of a common enemy.
Instead of being the rotting shell of what was once their fate, they stand in victory over their once thought all powerful enemy.
THE CHRONICLES... 
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