Blog entry for:

of addiction, is certainly a germane topic for this addict and leads down all sorts of different paths. today, i will accept that being an addict, means that i am afflicted by the disease of addiction. i also accept that, for me, the ONLY way to remain in remission, is a life of total abstinence. the very substances that once made my life, tolerable, i now see as poison, and as a result i HAD to find a new manner in which to live, that did not include medicating away my spiritual and emotional pain. this lifestyle, total abstinence of mind and mood altering substances, may have been forced upon me, way back when, HOWEVER today i choose to live in that manner with no reservations, it simply is how i live my life, by CHOICE. now that i have successfully parroted today$#32;s reading, i can move on to something a bit different.
i find myself living in a world where the sickest and less fortunate and continually trod upon, by the rich and powerful. if one lacks decent health insurance, one usually dies in a pile of debt foisted upon them by the medical paradigm of a “a pill for everything.” big PHARMA, has trained a generation of doctors to believe that it is better to medicate than to operate and that newest and most expensive product on the market is the ONE magic bullet to prescribe. of course, the insurance companies buy into that logic as well, and charge outrageous co-pays and justifies it by saying that their practitioner should have tried the cheaper, generic versions first, which goes against what pharma industry desires. so the patient is presented with ever increasing costs, the pharma companies make ever increasing profits and the insurance companies cut benefits to increase their profits. sometimes the most effective treatments are not not the most expensive and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to extend a life three to six months certainly looks like a rigged game, after all one of the things i crow about is the freedom to choose how i live and yet, when one takes a peek into the industry of sickness, the quality of life in the least important factor. it makes me a bit grateful, that when i got clean, there was no “pill” to treat addiction as a disease, in fact it was not even considered a disease at that time.
i certainly believed life without using was never going to be possible for me. i believed that my life would suck and i would spin down to a place, where ending that sad excuse of a life, was my only option. as much as i hated being foisted into a program of recovery and was resentful about the path i had been placed upon, i finally came to terms with what exactly this life could be. okay, i could go on with the litany of gifts i receive to choose on a daily basis, i could, but i will not. i will say that no doctor, no pill, no insurance company and certainly no pharmaceutical company could ever give me what i have today. i may not know how i became an addict, as i believe the propensity to be one was there long before i picked up that very first time but i do know how to treat my addiction and remain in remission from active addiction -- just do not use, just for today.
yes i have a very jaded take on what the medical and addiction treatment industry has become. i get that sending active addicts off to a 12 step or similar support program, does not put any any additional money in wall street bankers pockets and there is no profit in getting an addict clean and keeping them clean. the cost of my life on society and the people around me, has been greatly reduced and just for today, i accept that i am an addict, that i need treatment and fVck BIG PHARMA with their drug replacement therapies that make me socially acceptable but do very little to help me become something more than an abstinent addict.
time to put this away and see if i can get a bit of Football in and maybe win another week of fantasy football as well, there is always HOPE!

∞ DT ∞