addiction

Our culture has bred consumers and addicts. We eat too much, buy too much, and want too much. We set ourselves on the fruitless mission of filling the gaping hole within us with material things. Blindly, we consume more and more, believing we are hungry for more food, status, or money, yet really we are hungry for connection.

There comes a time. The pain of existence transcends the fear of change. There comes a time.

as i discovered, the path to sobriety is a precarious, complex journey. you obviously want to purge yourself of something that has been so destructive and has had such a grip on you. but in the deep recesses of your mind, you wonder if you will mourn the loss of this old friend that has been by your side for years. i know this sounds sick, but you actually find yourself wondering if your life is going to become quite boring without this crutch. of course, the yearning for true health far outweighs everything else. you know things are going to be better for you, for your loved ones, and for everyone you encounter. you will no longer have to hide things and live a lie. yes, that initial high of drugs and booze can be very, very attractive, but it's not worth the wrecked and trashed feeling you have the next morning. nor is it worth the cumulative toll it exacts from you.

Using excuses for the predicament you're in and minimizing your situation, whether it is drug or alcohol use, is a sure sign of an addict.

Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine, if you will, and my childhood was littered with the consequences of their addiction : unserviceable debts, squabbles over inheritances, the odd alcoholic or suicide.

When nothing else worked, we created a holistic, hand-tailored program that saved Pax's life. At Passages, he and I use what we learned in curing him to help others discover the roots of their addiction or alcoholism and break free.

Even if we're among the lucky few who benefit from civilization, we find ourselves curiously unsatisfied, plagued by stress, worry, and conflict... Like the addict who believes against all evidence that what he can't give up won't lead to suffering and death, our culture adheres to its ideas in spite of ample, clear evidence they will lead to suffering and death.

Being mad at a drug addict for doing what drug addicts do, is like being mad at a shark for doing what sharks do, or being mad at a cockroach for doing what cockroaches do.

It was not long before I discovered that withdrawing addicts lost their composure in exactly the same manner that careless millionaires lose their money: gradually, then suddenly.

A spiritual hell I lived in _ hating the God of love and knowing the god I served _ hated me!

YANNI __OHNNY_ BACOLAS: I would always tell him, __ayne [Staley], why don__ you take off, go to some deserted island, hire the best counselors, and just kick this shit? Go for six months if you have to._ And his rebuttal was, __ohnny, I have celebrity status and I have a lot of money. I could fly planes out to deliver me the dope if I wanted to _ and that__ what I would do. I can__ escape.

NANCY LAYNE McCALLUM: An addict and a non-addict don__ think the same _ their brains are wired completely differently. Only an addict can help another addict through recovery.

My nose bleeds, and every comedown feels like an overdose. I try to make peace with God each time, but he shows no interest, and it reminds me of my dad, and I get so upset that I just have to do another line. Like I said, a cycle.

It starts raining harder, I've got a long way to go walking and pushing that sore leg right along in the gathering rain, no chance no intention whatever of hailing a cab, the whiskey and the Morphine have made me unruffled by the sickness of the poison in my heart.

Often self-love is replaced with self- loathing, compounded by beating ourselves up. We become experts at putting ourselves down, judging ourselves, and finding fault. This creates deep shame that says __ am a mistake_ instead of saying __ made a mistake.

But I know that in my heart of hearts that drinking is about as good an escape as an innocent game of suicide skiing, so I know also that David's complete obsession with video games of this type, or any type, are far from healthy.

This is the point where the knowing, irony-infused author laughs along with his readers about his time among the aphorisms, how he was once so gullible and needy that he drank deeply of such weak and fruity Kool-Aid. That's some other book. Slogans saved my life. All of them--the dumb ones, the preachy ones, the imperatives, the cliches, the injunctives, the gooey, Godly ones, the shameless, witless ones.

These guys had names for every conceivable drinking situation. They liked to have a little eye-opener to get themselves going in the morning, a midmorning bracer before attempting anything serious, a few modest cocktails at lunch, followed by the obligatory afternoon pick-me-up, which segued neatly right into happy hour and ended with a little one just to help them sleep. For purely medicinal purposes, of course.