pt.4/4: a plea to the addicted

[Part four of our four part series on the opioid epidemic]

This is to you, those still in active addiction to whatever the hell it is that you are addicted to. But it is more so a letter to my younger self. If you are still a slave in service of The Substance, and you are reading this, allow me to voice a desperate plea with you for a moment.

…hello there.

I need to tell you something.

You, The Paradox guest, have been set upon a funeral pyre. Things are not getting better. The flames have started to lick at your ankles. You know it, and I know it. But, you deserve more than a life of addiction. You deserve more than dependency has left you with.

Life is made up of three parts — beauty, pain, and everything in between. But there is no beauty without pain, and you, my friend, have been numbing your pain. Living without beauty or pain, in purgatory. That’s what your life has become; purgatory. The everything-in-between. You know you can’t deny it. You are going through the motions, at best. Stationary, raping your veins for a minute’s relief at worst. What are you going to do once they finally give up on you? They will eventually, you know…

Your version of purgatory is a silence made up of three parts. The first is the silence of your soul. It is the emptiness that you feel, and it is the void. You may not have noticed this first silence, as you have been anesthetized, while surgical-like excisions have hollowed out your most fundamental features of self.

The second silence you have experienced is the silence of your senses. This is that which covers you, the silence of the warm blanket which keeps you sleeping. But your usage has stretched and coiled your blanket to the point where it is but a thick cord, no longer capable of covering you. It now wraps and confines you like a boa constrictor on its prey, silently slithering into your day, stealing away your waking senses too — so that you cannot see, hear, smell, or experience touch as you once did. You now live muted, amidst this silence.

The final part is the silence that rules above all others — the absence of hope. For this is the silence that has rendered you incapable of seeing any other possible future paths that you may travel down. This is the silence of lead, and this is the silence of chains. This is the silence of despair.

So you right now are silently f*cked. The good news is that there are multitudes of professionals in your area that would love nothing better than to safely and silently unf*ck you. Unfortunately, the problem is that you right now are pretty much the only person on the planet who can’t. You are, currently, incapable of helping yourself, because you are locked into the grip of The Silence. Trust me.

But, you are capable of picking up the phone, even though you are muted. Without a single dollar to your name, you are capable of getting into a medical detox with little effort, and with about as much resolve as you have denial. If you have nothing, you can sign up for state-based insurance for the indigent, and be in a medical detox three days later.

You may be living in one of the states with longer waiting lists; that is a reality in many of your situations. But whether or not you like it, the days are going to continue to take you, with or without your permission. Three weeks from now, you will either be an addict in medical detox, on his or her way to recovery, or you will just be stuck in your same pitiful cycle. So sign up for the insurance, make the call, and get onto the list.

How many weeks do you think The Great Animator has set out for you in your life? A million? Wrong. The average person has but four thousand. Think of all the weeks you have wasted. Here’s a hint; way too many. You have likely thrown away more than a thousand weeks of your four thousand-week allotments already. There may not be that many left in you, if you carry on.

Look at what your life has become. In the words of Pink Floyd, you are just ticking away the moments that make up the dull day. You are frittering and wasting the hours in an offhand way, waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but no one is going to show you the way if you do not ask them to. And you would not listen to their unsolicited advice, even if they did.

Remember, your Substance is not the only thing that can offer you pleasure. When is the last time you had sex, completely sober? You don’t even know, do you? At only a few days clean, you’ll experience more pleasure from laying in the center of the room and turning Hide and Seek on at a ridiculously high volume, than you will off of a shot or foil full of fentanyl, towards the end.

Do you even remember how much you loved music? Your top songs on Spotify from last year are full of songs you don’t even know. That’s because you listened to each song once, and they were off of a random playlist. You listened to a total of thirty songs in a year. The amount that you have strayed from everything that makes you…you, is pathetic. Who are you? You have lost yourself.

Continue ranting into your voice memos on your iPhone, totally convinced that your genius will be heard one day. Only, it won’t. Not as long as you stay enslaved to The Substance which you are living, and will eventually die for. And please just trust me — however smart you think you are, you are actually way less smart than that.

But people love you, you know… It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you have done. People. Love. You. Not only are you robbing yourself of you, but you are robbing your loved ones of you as well. You may even be robbing them of themselves along your way. Sober, you are a gift to the people around you. You just can’t see it right now. You feel like a parasite. You feel like a disappointment. You feel like it’s too late for you. Too late to get a college degree, too late for love, too late to have a family, too late to find a career, and too late to get clean. But that is a stupid and filthy lie.

One of the people who love you will one day point out that you seem to have a natural predilection toward songs that have to do with standing back up. Crazy how easily other people can see right through you. Perhaps that’s because of all the times you have had to pull your thousand-pound self off of the floor. It gets old, and it gets harder. You get heavier, as the years pass by, and your past piles up. One day soon, the weight might be too much for you. So, find motivation wherever you can; listen to as many songs about getting back up as you need to. And then do it. Start today. Before it’s too late.

A record will one day begin to break your silence, and will ask you a few simple questions — Will you stand? Or will you falter? Will you lean into the timeless bending, never-ending strength in your heart? Will you prosper? Will you recover after all the love you’ve lost and lost again?

Yes, you will. So STAND. BACK. UP.

Sincerely, the future you.

RSM