The Hidden Chapter, Page 7
TRIGGER WARNING: Detailed Substance Abuse/Addictions
NOT A MEMBER? READ HERE FOR FREE!
This article was boosted on Medium a couple of days ago. All writers on Medium vie for being boosted by Medium curators and publishers. My publication, “Speaking Bipolar,” nominated this for boosting. “Raw” and “vulnerable “ were the words used to describe it. This is as real as it gets.
“My body is humming. It is pervasive and disturbing. Like the steady, incessant thrum of the soundtrack to a silent movie. Constant. Inundating. Exhausting. I try to quell it. I try to gain control of it. I tried to surrender to it. I fail. Miserably. Defeatedly.
I’m once again on the trip of self-destruction. I gave in to temptation and got more. I haven’t done that much of it, but paired with no sleep, my body rejects it. I slept maybe two hours last night, if that. I usually sleep like a baby when I’m doing it because my body is exhausted from the day. But that is not the case this time. I haven’t done any this morning yet. The last I did was around 6:00 PM last night. I’m coming down from it which is unpleasant. I took hydros and tried to nap, but my body won’t stop freaking humming. I just lay there, trying to control my breathing. I succeed at my breathing but cannot slow the beating of my heart. It steadily beats guilty in collaboration with the steady hum.
I’m hydrating. I’m vaping. My eyes burn from lack of sleep. I’m trembling inwardly. I’m nauseous. Probably from all the sleeping pills I took last night. My mouth is dry. There are dark circles under my eyes. I look years older. I feel like an idiot. But I’m practicing radical acceptance, and I will not judge myself for yet another folly. This will definitely be the last I promise myself. But I’m not a good liar, especially to myself. I know when I’m lying. I can’t hide from my own judgment. And it’s the most severe judgments. Looking in the mirror and seeing an addict. It doesn’t get more real than that. What would my friends think? What would my daughter think?”
In this Page of The Hidden Chapter, I discuss addictions and the ways we justify them. Then, I’m going to share my own personal story that I’ve not shared with anyone other than my husband. And lastly, I would like to hear your thoughts.
Defining Addiction
First, let me clarify an addiction the way I’m using it here. Merriam-Webster defines addiction as “a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence.”
Generally, there are two types of addictions: substance and behavioral. Labels don’t matter for the purposes of this article. An addiction is an addiction. If you have to ask, it probably is.
Some examples of the most common addictions include the use, misuse, and/or abuse of any prescribed or nonprescribed medication, illegal substances, addictive legal substances, gambling, pornography, sex, gaming, smoking, drinking, eating, shopping, pyromania, kleptomania, the internet, mobile devices. This list is not all inclusive. People have addictions to bath salts. Man will find ways to meet his needs.
No One is Free from Addiction
It rains on the just and the unjust. Everyone is addicted to something, and any addiction is a form of neurosis. Obviously, some are worse than others. Some are illegal, while others are not. Some are federally controlled, while some aren’t controlled with anything more than an ID, a PIN, or a password. A fingerprint. And maybe that password is already autosaved into your phone. Some are merely at the tips of your fingers. Some are right in front of you, while others show up at your door. Others you may have to go out and get. You might get dressed up for some and down for others. Some cost more than others, but we pay for all of them in some way. Or someone else does.
I’ve mentioned previously that neuroses come in many forms. They have big family trees and they’re contagious. It’s amazing just how insidious they are. How they grow branches and sprout seedlings. How far the wind carries them. How intrusive. Persistent. Caustic. Soap doesn’t wash them off. Alcohol doesn’t flush them out. Pills merely stifle them or cause their own addictions. They hide behind the veils of reasons, excuses. Waiting. You will convince yourself one time or twenty times that you don’t need it anymore and it will allow you to truly believe that as it slowly creeps back up on you.
It’s like putting on weight. It doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t know it’s there until you see the pounds on the scale. And you’re shocked to see how much it weighs. Weighing you down. It’s easy to put on the weight but hard as hell to shed it.
And so, it is with neuroses. They have tendrils that wrap around the creases of your brain. They particularly like the amygdala, where the lizard still lives. They seize it and squeeze it until you’re forced to relinquish control and then what? And the pre-frontal cortex that shrouds your vision on virtually everything around you. Affects your reasoning. They take root and grow there. There’s no Roundup for these weeds. No radiation therapy for these cancers. Just Band-Aids.
Reasons or Excuses
Why do I do these things?
As humans, we are programmed for instant gratification. To defend ourselves. To lie. That includes lying to ourselves. We find hundreds of ways of justifying things, especially things we really want. Right or wrong. Good or bad.
Are your “reasons” for your addiction justified? How so? Or are you simply making excuses that relieve you of the blame? Ease your guilty conscience? Maybe you’re so ashamed that you just pretend it doesn’t exist at all. Maybe you should be.
There is a barrier between you and it, and it prevents you from facing it. Perhaps you just consider it a bad habit that isn’t really hurting anything or anyone, so maybe it’s just unsightly but isn’t harmful.
Perhaps you’ve just considered this is how things are going to be. It’s genetic. You’re loaded. You were just damned. Maybe it’s just temporary until things are better or you get back on your feet. Maybe it’s because someone else you know does it, so you do it to fit in. Maybe you just ignore it and think it will go away. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself it’s not really as bad as others think it is.
Always chasing a high. Like that first time. Whatever your addiction is. You know. Have you ever caught it?
I understand.
I do.
I woke up gasping. I thought it was maybe a nightmare, sudden panic attack. It didn’t last very long before I just went back to sleep. After another Valium, just in case it was panic. It was another wonderful afternoon nap. With my cuddly cat next to me, all cozy. Pure bliss. I would only be an hour or two. My room was my heaven, my haven compared to the turmoil going on outside my door. (More on that elsewhere.) This was my only escape. This was my me time. My husband later told me he wasn’t sure if he would find me dead or alive when he went in to check on me sleeping. My breathing would be so shallow.
s luck would have it, it happens to be the nature of the beast having been bestowed with both a personality disorder and bipolar disorder that I also have an addictive personality, which means I’m an addict. Of anything. Lucky me. The act of the addictive behavior itself is addicting to me. If it could be crushed and snorted, it was going up my nose.
I actually tried to addict myself to some things simply because they were considered addictive. Why should I be immune? I made myself sick trying to addict myself to it. You think you’re crazy? Seriously. What in the hell is wrong with me?
“Take one pill every 4–6 hours, as needed for pain.” To me, that meant that within a 24-hour period, I could legally take six pills. Technically, this is true. I justified it but not for any other reason that I didn’t get what I wanted from the “intended” dosing instructions. I also had Narcan in case of overdose. To me, it meant that I could take all six at once and still make a pill count and not run out of my prescription too soon. I think the most I ever took was eight at once. 10 mg. My tolerance was so high, I couldn’t even tell I had taken anything. For either pain or pleasure. I still have some empty bottles. I don’t know why…
My Afflictions
Iam not cursed with totally revolting proclivities, but likely more so than the average person. I’m pretty sure some of the activities I participate in won’t get me into heaven and if I weren’t publicly discussing a lot of it on Medium and actually getting paid for it, I would wonder if my words would be censored. They’re not. What I had originally thought was going to be an erotica genre has turned out to be more drama, comedy, and satire, along with some resultant sex. Far from pornographic.
I’m not strung out on heroin, living in a cardboard box in the slums of the Bronx. I’m not exactly slinging my ass out on the corner in the red-light district to pay for my crack habit. I don’t have to delete my browsing history, so my partner doesn’t see all the porn I’ve been watching. But I can tell you that I don’t want anybody to know some specific things I’ve done or that I might still do.
I haven’t decided exactly whether my opioid “bad habit” was actually an addiction. It was a dependence. A tolerance. See all the ways I can justify it that somehow distinctly define it as not being an “addiction?” I never had withdrawals that I was able to identify as such. The only withdrawal is that I missed it. I still do.
Fact is, I do suffer from chronic pain. There’s the pain of Multiple Sclerosis. It’s called the “MS hug” when the intercostal muscles of the rib cage seize up. The pain of muscle spasticity, where particularly my legs are so tight, they’re painful to walk on. There’s the pain of my degenerative spine. Combined with the spasms in my back, it can get almost unbearable. I have to have steroid injections in my hips to keep them from hurting when I wake up in the morning or go to sleep at night. It used to be trochanteric bursitis. Now, it’s bone degeneration.
A chiropractor told me once that it was due to all the physical labor I did as a child. He asked me if I had plowed fields or something. Somewhat jokingly, but he didn’t know just how true that was. I’m an inch and a half shorter than I was 10 years ago. My body is caving in on itself. These are reasons why I was prescribed them in the first place. For two decades. But I abused them.
Another likely fact is that I will never be prescribed narcotics for my pain again. Not until I’m literally dying. I failed two drug screens for other things, and pain clinics won’t see me as a patient. I’m a liability. This means I will get plenty of Vitamin M and a ton of physical therapy. I will be lucky if I can get some decent muscle relaxers. So, I suffer as a consequence of my own actions.
Life is all about choices, and our choices have consequences. Those are the rules. Difficulties are supposedly needed for health. That’s a matter of opinion.
Does the Addict Deserve Compassion?
We have placed ourselves amongst the lepers. The filthy, sinful scum of the earth. Psychologically, learned helplessness will cause us to remain in the gutters. We believe we will fail; therefore, we fail. Science proves it.
“That I feed the hungry, forgive an insult, and love my enemy…. these are great virtues. But what if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me, and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness; that I myself am the enemy who must be loved? What then?”
— C.G. Jung
The Reality of My “Reasons”
According to the CDC, it is estimated that “nearly 17,000 overdose deaths involving prescription opioids …occurred in 2021, which is equivalent to 45 deaths per day. This number is likely an undercount of deaths related to prescription opioids because it does not include deaths associated with pharmaceutical fentanyl, tramadol, and other synthetic opioids that are used as pain medications.”
These numbers also do not consider the presence of more than one drug in the system, such as a benzo, cocaine, or methamphetamine. Death certificates don’t typically list the specific drug that caused the death because it’s simply unknown. The combination of more than one multiplies its lethality. I am lucky to be alive.
Hurting Heals
“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration that are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.”
— C.G. Jung
Iam no longer addicted to painkillers. Dependent. Whatever you want to call it. I do need them, but I don’t have them, use, nor abuse them. Something wonderful came out of my coming off of them, too. I learned about these things called “positive neural pathways.” I discuss these in an article I recently published. That knowledge kept me moving forward on my path of enlightenment. The one I’m still traveling. Trinity’s trail.
READ HERE: “Three Things to Consider When Things Get Really Bad — My Three Changed Me”
I cannot say that I’ve overcome all my addictions, but I figure one less is better than one more. Celebrate the small successes.
The struggle is real. I know. Listen to the inner voice. You know what you need to do. And there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. It’s not just a four-letter word. At least do your own research. If you’re dedicated to fixing yourself, study yourself. Educate yourself. I hear religion is a very effective method of overcoming addictions as well as other mental illnesses. Maybe I will write more on that later.
Conclusion
In summary, I discussed addictions in all their complexities. I gave examples of how we justify them. Reasons or excuses? Do I have to ask? You already know. And I shared a lot of my own personal experiences. Successes and yet-to-bes.
Please share some of yours with me. What has been effective for you to overcome them? If you haven’t yet overcome then, what’s stopping you? Is there something I can offer to help?
I’m not a hotline. I won’t blow sunshine up your ass. And I’m no expert, but sometimes we just need a little push in the right direction. Inspiration is the catalyst that drives motivation.
Thanks for reading!
Follow my series: “From the Pages of a Perpetual Pariah:”
Table of Contents: From the Pages of a Perpetual Pariah-
8 stories
The Power of the Ellipsis 
Leave a comment