I BURIED MY "FRIEND"

I find it curious that most people in mainstream America define drug addicts as: unmotivated, loveless, joyless, useless, careless, selfish, and worthless. If I had a dollar for each of these adjectives when heard them used to describe an addict, I'd be financially secure for life.....

Truth be told, I used to see them through those eyes as well. I didn't expose myself to drugs until I was twenty-two years old. I just assumed everyone was right about the views of addicts. Even the sad stories, theft, violence, and heartbreak were not met with sympathy, but more like a "see, I told you "they" are horrible" attitude.

After metamorphosing into a full blown heroin addict, which took sixteen years of motivation, drive, energy, love, heart, soul, action, worth, joy, use, use and more use, creativity, friends, relationships, family, drama, desire, truth, lies, countless smiles and tears, and exceptional survival skills, I came to realize that addicts are far from different than any person I had ever known. They have an added "ingredient" (drugs) than the mainstream American.

With such "additions or ingredients" there are going to be "losses". But is this not true with all things? When a child is born into a marriage, is there not a loss of privacy, free time, independence, self, sex, time etc......?

No matter what you add there is a going to be a loss. For some, a baby is a "bundle of joy" and for others, they see a bundle of heroin as such. Perhaps what is added and lost vary...but perhaps not.

You can't control the child you bring into this world a hundred percent forever.....what if that child becomes a heroin addict? What is your "bundle of joy" then?? Loved, I'm sure: but joyous, not so much.

Well, my heroin had become that to me. I loved it so much and had a blast at first, when my "addiction" to that drug was "born"....but as it grew up and I lost control, I still loved it but it was breaking me and steeling from me and deceiving me. I couldn't ever be free.

With the death of a loved-one there is much grief, confusion, denial, sadness, anger, questioning, love, broken hearts, and an emptiness. If that loved one brought you immeasurable pain, lies, broken promises, stolen dreams, pain and suffering, violence, heartache, terror, as well as, happy memories, smiles, relationships, comfort, company, hope, joy, inspiration, and contentment would you not still cry at the loss? If you ever "loved" that person....wouldn't you probably make futile attempts at making sense of it all? Would you have regrets of things you should have said or done....even once?

When I lost my habit.....I lost my best-worst friend or worst-best friend...depending on the moment. Addiction is alive. It is an entity that lives inside you. When it "dies" it's always with you....like a "loved" one. It never truly leaves as long as you remember it.

And occasionally, every once and a while, you think you hear it or see it again. You may dream of it like it's still here.

But just like the loss of a family member or friend, digging it up out of the grave will not prove to satisfy you as it used to. It would be rather disturbing and provoke nightmares....

let it rest in peace. It's in a better place now...than it was when it was alive...Time to move-on.