We Don’t All Have Escobar Money
Addiction only happens to weak, ignorant people. If you put a needle in your arm, you clearly don’t care about anybody but yourself. If you crave a substance more than you crave food or water, you’ve purposefully chosen the wrong priorities. If you can’t stop at just two drinks like everyone else at the country club, you are garbage that stumbled into the wrong environment for the length of a party. Educated, refined, sane people don’t struggle with addiction because they know better. Addiction happens to people that have no worth. They let it happen. They don’t know any better. They just don’t care.
That is the message that society is sending to us and spreading about us.
The thing about stereotypes is that we are all guilty of believing them to a certain extent. There are exceptions to every rule, we just don’t want to be the daring explorer that goes out in search of the diamond in the rough. I know that “more expensive” doesn’t always mean “higher quality,” but I’m not going to scrub myself down with dollar store soap until I find one off-brand that doesn’t make me break-out in a rash. So, yeah, I’m guilty. I’m also a hypocrite, considering that, because I’m an addict, society has reassigned me categorically as a dollar store brand of human being. Addiction has such a stigma that even people who once claimed to love me now look at me and say, “wow, I was wrong about her. I thought she was worth something, but she’s an alcoholic.” What I wish, and what I think we all wish people would think is, “wow, she’s an alcoholic? Addiction must be incredibly powerful, cunning, and confusing.” Unfortunately, we aren’t there yet. …but we will press on.
The crux of fighting to be considered human as an addict is that, in active addiction, we were barely human. We were in a selfish degree of survival mode, akin to trampling another person while running to an emergency exit. All we did was lie to get what we needed to keep going- the kind of behavior attributed to bad people, but excellent politicians. Although, we parted ways with political behavior when we admitted that our actions were deplorable and resolved to do everything in our power to never be that way again. The problem is that those resolves are committed to under the radar. We only mention them in 12 Step meetings, which are anonymous, and in really sad letters to ex-lovers that we threw-up on or hit with a car. The only changes usually apparent to bystanders are that we started showing up for work more often and on time, and we finally learned how to press a shirt. Even in 2020, where speaking your truth is encouraged and admitting your struggle is praised, telling people that you are an addict is a big, big risk. Maybe I’m not giving people enough credit, but I imagine that, even if they can muster some farce support when you tell them that you are recovering from addiction, the message they take away (and spread to others) is that you let yourself become an addict.
I’ve been doing my best to educate myself on the array of substances, levels of addiction, underlying mental health issues, childhood traumas, and drug cultures that other addicts have experienced. I will admit that, by comparison, my level of addiction (while still enough to destroy my assemblance of a life) was quite tame. So, if anyone ever complains about my brand of advocacy, claiming that I don’t know what I’m talking about- they would be right. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I was privileged, that’s the difference. I had the same brain as every other addict, but I had a credit card. That may be the only reason that I was purchasing vodka instead of selling myself for Fentanyl- because that desperate need for escape is what fuels every struggling addict. While we’re doing comparisons, the only difference between a woman of color doing crack in an alleyway and a white man doing cocaine in his office, is their budget. Remember that.
The most difficult struggle that people have when attempting to square with a recovering addict is that they can’t separate the (now) human being from the (then) addict behavior. That’s perfectly understandable. We can barely square with it ourselves. It haunts our dreams- if we can get any sleep at all trying to live with what we’ve done. No part of our sober brain can understand why our brain under the influence would commit those actions. That behavior isn’t part of our sane being. We even recognize it in other addicts. If someone who is still very obviously addicted walks into a 12 Step meeting, we can sniff them out. We’ll say, “we’re glad you’re here,” and we’ll put our number down on a list, but we aren’t going to armor-up for your fight. We’re not exorcists. We can’t compel the demon to vacate you. But by all means, please come back to our club when it does leave you and we’ll help you board-up all the windows and doors where it used to get in.
What would easily fix the issue of addicts being stigmatized as just “addicts” would be people endeavoring to understand addiction. From the outside it looks like worthless people making repeated poor choices until they die or sober up. Its not a super-flattering status quo. It’s a cliché, but in the recovery community I have met some of the most impressive, successful, determined, kind-hearted people you could imagine. I’ve also met some serious assholes. A room full of addicts isn’t different than any other room in that regard. Although, it would be nice to have our worth assessed at the door of whatever room we walk into, rather than predetermined by our history of substance abuse. “History.” That means we’ve put our bad behavior behind us, why can’t you? We can’t possibly be worthless if we are on a constant mission to better ourselves and a world that we left an ugly smear on. Everyone has struggled with something at some point- maybe our worth is that we can help you with yours. We’re veterans. I wouldn’t say that addiction is the worst struggle in the world, given that it is self-inflicted, but it could certainly be competitive for the strangest. There is so much room for hurt and misunderstanding within the affliction and I don’t expect any wounds to heal or stereotypes to be beaten with one informative brochure. I just hope that the next time someone who has suffered from addiction is in your presence, you consider them a human and not a casualty. If they are vertical and not using, then they fought damn hard to be there. So, don’t be surprised when they stand up to be counted.
