What addicts want normal people and those who love us to know

1. We are not stupid, we’re well aware of the damage. We know that what we are doing is killing us. We know that we are hurting people. We are aware of how society sees us. We know.

2. ADDICTION IS NOT ENJOYABLE. We are not “partying” or having a good time. The party ended a long time ago. We’re fucking miserable. Many of these drugs were never party drugs to begin with. It might seem fun and exciting the first week or month, but it quickly becomes a hassle and a fucking chore.

3. We don’t keep using just because we want to get high all the time. We use to not get sick and just to function normally in our daily lives. After awhile, we’re not thinking “how am I going to get high today?” We’re thinking “how will I be able to get to work today?” And then the reason we relapse is because we can’t remember surviving without it.

4. We have massive amounts of guilt, shame, and low self-esteem. We don’t need to be called “pieces of shit” and “scum junkies” because we already feel that way about ourselves every day!! This disease tells us not to care when we lie to friends and family. This disease makes us selfish. But we are human and we feel terrible about it. We aren’t psychopaths and are more than capable of feeling remorse. The more selfish acts we engage in, the worse we feel about ourselves. But we compulsively keep dragging ourselves through dirt.

5. It has absolutely nothing to do with you or anyone else. You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it. It is no one’s fault and you did not fail as a sister/brother/mother/father/aunt/uncle/cousin/grandpa /grandma/bestfriend/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/partner. When we lie to you or choose drugs over you, it is nothing personal. It does not mean we don’t still love you. When the disease takes over, it doesn’t necessarily want to hurt you. It just assigns everyone the same value so they are neutral/irrelevant. Someone in active addiction is stuck in a completely internal thought process that completely blocks out the existence of other people.

6. The drug is stronger than love and values like family and friendship, and that’s why we’ve chosen it over you. That is the unfortunate truth. That’s why we find a higher power in recovery, because no human power or emotion can fight off the drug on its own.

7. While addiction makes us choose the drug, we NEVER chose the addiction over you. Addiction is miserable and we don’t want it. The addiction chose us.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. It wasn’t easy admitting all of this to you but it has helped me in my road back to normalcy. It hasn’t been easy and there have been some hiccups along the way, but I have learned and I keep continuing to learn cause “everyday above ground is a good day”. I never said I was perfect in life cause in reality no one is perfect, we all fall, but its how we choose to pick ourselves up and the roads we choose to reach our destiny.