addiction

I am not an addict myself, but I have been deep in relationship with addicts before. Benjamin, of course, and others. It is harder than most things, to be in this constellation.

Sometimes the real heartbreak is understanding the person you love is not even there at all anymore. The disease takes over and the person inside becomes powerless to drive the decisions.

I was reading something Russell Brand had written on addiction years ago, around the same time that Amy Winehouse died. He was talking about the difference between him and someone who is not an addict, both sipping drinks politely at a party.

He said, “Even if it began as a timid glass of chardonnay on a ponce's yacht, it would end with me necking the bottle, swimming to shore and sprinting to Bethnal Green in search of a crack house.”

That sentence changed my understanding of addiction. Some folks are willing to tear through walls and self destruct in order to fill the holes in themselves, which sometimes does not end until it is ended for them. Like Benjamin. Like Amy. And like so many others.

My heart aches for the whole lot: the addicts, the families and friends that encircle them, and the holes they leave when they die. Sometimes they do not die, but they continue to crash into things for a long life. It is painful either way.

And, then there are the ones who can get to the surface and stay afloat. The humans who get clean and begin to live for the pure exhilaration of being alive. One day, one step, and one breath at a time. These courageous ones are often the ones who have deep support systems, but mostly they have the hunger to do it for themselves. They want it enough to swim up from the bottom of the darkest part of the ocean. For those: I am so glad you are alive.