That’s normal, though–that’s why you’re an addiction and not a habit.
I feel like all my time and effort go to dealing with you. I envy those who seem to quit with almost no effort. But instead I’m an addict who wants both to quit and to use. But you’re a lousy lover–if you were human, you’d be abusive, and I’d be a victim. I know I need to quit, I know I should quit, but I want to stay with you. But in a way she’s right–addiction occurs when you can’t live without “It”, and the symptoms are the same. For example, I like to drink and gamble, but I can do just fine without sex, drugs, or other compulsive behaviors. One crisis counselor told me “Addiction is addiction is addiction.” I disagree with that, because everyone has different triggers and traits. After that there’s a craving, when we deeply desire to use. Then there’s a trigger–we start to remember our use. First it’s a thought–we think about using. She says that there are steps we go through between thinking about using and actually doing so.
#Letter from my addiction how to
My therapist is teaching me how to talk back to you. I don’t know how many times I’ve quit before.
If it were easy to quit, everybody would and I wouldn’t be in this apartment, listening to the temptation, writing this piece that’s as much for me as for my readers. I didn’t become addicted to alcohol and gambling overnight, so I don’t expect to heal overnight. Most of all, I have to learn to live without you. I have to take responsibility for my life and my actions, and I can’t do that when you impair my judgment. I have to learn to stand on my own two feet and fight my various mental illnesses and personality disorders. And I don’t want to have it happen again.
Less humorously, remember all the times we risked citations for public intoxication or driving under the influence? Remember all the hospitalizations you helped contribute to, all the drunken psychiatric emergencies? Remember the four months I spent drying out at a state hospital in Richmond, Indiana, and the sheer hell I went through there because my addiction took priority over my mental illnesses? I haven’t forgotten, you know. In many ways I’m still running while you call to me like a lover. You gave me what I thought was a good time, when all the time I was running from the infamous crash. Remember the time we made a drunken pass at a drag queen in a New York City transvestite bar? Or the time we stripped down and said we were going to paint our bodies and run around the neighborhood whooping like a Native American warrior? Yeah, funny, but embarrassing. You take my money, you cost me opportunities to do something else instead of spend time with you, you take my mental and physical health, and you cause me to do some crazy things–even for a person with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Yet I hate you, because you’re trying and sometimes succeeding at taking over my life. What can I say about you? I love you or I wouldn’t be an addict–if I didn’t love you I wouldn’t turn to you to cope.
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