I wanted to re-share this post in follow up to yesterday’s post. I wrote about video game addiction specifically yesterday, and I know I was letting out a lot of pain and anger there, but I think this post (inspired by what I’ve been going through) really follows on nicely. Addiction is just so prevalent, so many hurt people are hurting people, and I just believe the more we can talk, write, understand and get out of shame and blame… when you raise yourself an inch, you’ve raised all of us an inch too.
There is no hell like addiction. For those who are enslaved by their drugs of choice, and for those who love them so much, they get up every day and hug barbed wire. There is no hell like being an enabler to that barbed wire. Though you know deep in your soul, the only way you can save an addict is to let go and let them have their drugs of choice and wait until they see, realize, and believe that their drugs of choice are a problem, that they have a problem (but they are not the problem), and they need help – from themselves, from their higher powers/source/divine/god, an enabler will electrify that barbed wire, they will put poison on those barbs, they will beg that barbed wire to stop hurting them, but an enabler will do the one thing the addict needs most to continue their addiction – they won’t stop them from using the drug, no matter the cost, to the enabler or the addict.
It doesn’t have to be a pill or a bottle to be an addiction. Drugs can be so many things, and for many of us, I’d bet – their true drug of choice has a name, has a face, has a smile, has an entire being.
There is no dynamic more painful, narcissistic, abusive, toxic, etc than an addict that doesn’t have a problem and an enabler that doesn’t have a solution. It is a corrosive acid that will eat through every facet of their being, their children, their children’s children.
Addiction and enabling cannot and will not stop until steps are taken, whatever steps work. Reading something like ACOA, AA, NA can help with awareness. Just don’t get stuck on the steps, it’s more about finding that thing that is being resisted so it stops persisting.
Addicts and enablers can say something like: We have a problem. We need help from ourselves, our higher powers, and any professionals like therapists or other psychiatric care to find the root cause of the addiction.
Both are entirely curable if the addict and enabler learn to love themselves more than their drugs, learns life and love are worth it, learns how wonderful, beautiful, talented, and incredibly gifted they are. See truly that all the things they hate about themselves and try to run away from in the addiction are exactly what makes them loved, loving, wonderful and easy to love. That they deserve love from people, not drugs. That they hurt and are meanest to the people that love them most, and they are kindest and spend the most time with the things that hurt them the most – including the drugs. This is true for the enabler, except for the word drugs, it’s the name of the addict they love so much it hurts. For both, the only way out is through, and the only way to have a chance of holding on is to let go now, until it doesn’t hurt anymore because it doesn’t hurt anymore.
With addiction and enabling, we cling so much to the very things that are killing us, destroying us, obliterating the sun, making numbness feel better than all of the constant pain, depression, anxiety, worthlessness, etc. making death a welcome blessing, sleep the best option, and nothing worth loving yourself enough to live.
Addiction and enabling are living in hell, not being sure why it’s so fucking hot and arguing about how it is or isn’t cold. Active Enablers and active addicts are unreasonable, irrational, and illogical until they decide to use reason, rationality, and logic to see the problem, and act upon the appropriate solutions.
If we need help, we should really, really get help. If not for ourselves, for the people our wounds bleed and hemorrhage all over until someone decides to break the cycles. Everyone can break the cycles, and the cycles will only get worse if no one does.
How many more addicts and enablers are we going to raise before we love ourselves enough to live? And how many addicts and enablers are going to kill themselves trying to hide, repress, fight, and run away from all the things that – with love and attention – would blossom into the very gifts, talents, and abilities that lead us to every dream that we slept to escape our nightmares, we could just live in those dreams, If only we decide to wake up from the nightmare we exist in.
In active abuse and addiction, reactive abuse and reactive addiction will further muddy the waters because it becomes unclear who the addict and who the enabler is – because the truth is in this hell of a dynamic: both are addicts, and both are enablers, we just use different drugs and different tactics to make hate feel like love, love feel like hate, life feel like death and death feel like life. We all deserve better than this.
We all deserve love, we all deserve compassion, we all deserve healing, we all deserve forgiveness. But like a mask on the airplane: you cannot save another unless you put your mask on first. Are we oxygen starved, passing out, dying, and killing because none of us can put a metaphorical mask on and literally, actually save countless, innumerable loved ones because we chose to love ourselves enough to save ourselves first? Before we choose enough is enough and the cycles must stop?
May we all come to know the divine that saves us from the nightmares that we create because we refuse to see all we needed to do was wake up. Be careful – like enablers – those who want to help the most, tend to not actually be very helpful.
If hugging yourself feels like barbed wire too, it starts with looking in the mirror and saying something like “Please forgive me: I have a problem, but I am not the problem. I love myself enough to ask for help from myself, from my higher power, and from those I trust, love, respect. I have been worse, and I will always get better. I forgive myself because I didn’t know any better, if I did, I would have. I forgive myself because I deserve forgiveness, love, respect, compassion, and life. I deserve better than this. Thank you. I love you”
Last, and certainly not least – no one can have a problem unless they have a solution. The best part of admitting there is a problem, is purely by the existence of that problem, a solution has been invoked too. When we don’t have a problem, we don’t have a solution. There is no greater force for good and change than a healed addict and a healed enabler. These combinations can literally change the world they destroyed. They can change every single nightmare into their wildest dreams.
An addict will make an enabler’s life their living nightmare. But a healed and recovered addict makes every healed and recovered enabler’s dreams come true. Like magic. The rough part is that it takes many cycles til the cycles stop because there is no more addiction to enable.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Mah Butt Itches 