Day 34: Halting the Hustle

Day 34: I keep who I am anonymous because I worry what those that don't know about drug addiction would think of me, how they would judge me. It is not because I am ashamed of who I am, I know this experience will make me a better person in the long run. I just wish everyone was forced to live the life of a drug addict, with no money for one week. I say no money because only then they would really feel what it means to truly be an addict. It probably wouldn't even require a whole week for those individuals to be more sympathetic of those truly suffering. I often wonder how I allowed myself to ever get in this position. Most people say addictions is hereditary, there is generally a pattern in one's family history; thus allowing the addict insight into addiction plus someone in their family to seek sympathy or support from. That's not the case in my situation. Drug addiction or any addiction for that matter is not found in my family history. So why me, was I just so much weaker than everyone else? I never did drugs as a kid or teen, even though I grew up in a home that was abusive and lacked love, I never turned to drugs. As a teen and young adult I guess you could say I was addicted to cutting, yep I was a cutter. But I hid it so very well and few people ever found out. At 16 was my first suicide attempt, I'm glad I failed. I thought it would make my parents realize my pain and make them love me more, but three days in ICU was all the whole event ended up amounting to. I was 24 years old when I started using, that's just crazy to me...I was an adult and I didn't say no and the addiction was still able to get its hold on me. Maybe if there had been someone in my family that had been through addiction, I would have seen the signs, known what I was in for. But I myself had never been impacted directly by addiction, I was clueless. Therefor, had I been made to be an addict for a week, a required class at the age of 18 to become an adult, I believe this is a path I would have been able to avoid and it would also allow me to be more sympathetic to those addicts around me.

"For those who understand

no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand,

no explanation is possible."