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for addiction, is as simple as living a program of recovery. it is true, i go back and forth about the whole **disease** concept of addiction. what i do not waver on , is that addiction is one force in my life, over which i have absolutely no power. given the choice of never using again and doing just a “little something” to “take the edge off,” i will choose the “little something” every single time. the fact does not change, no matter whether or not i call addiction a disease, an affliction or a condition. all the times i fight over the semantics of the word “addiction,” i am attempting to soften the blow to my ego. society looks at addicts as “less than” and i am trying to scream “but it is not my fault!”
once upon a time, looking at addiction as a disease was comforting to me. once upon a time, looking at addiction as a separate person or demon within me, was comforting to me. once upon a time seeing myself as a “sick” individual was a nice dodge. as i “grew up” in recovery, i had to finally come to terms with the fact that i am an addict, period, no questions asked. the reality of that admission is that i have to take extraordinary steps to get the power not to use today and to behave “as if” i was a member of the other 85%. to me, that means i have to take RESPONSIBILITY for my recovery. i have to ASK for the power to stay clean from the POWER that fuels that recovery. i have top PAUSE and allow my recovery to guide me through situations that “trigger” the hard-wired, addict behaviors that i cultivated over the course of my active addiction. i accept the mantle of that responsibility, just for today, because as an addict, i cannot commit to being clean tomorrow.
that admission may seem like a HUGE cop-out as many of my peers say that using is not an option for them. for me, using is always an option, but because i treat my addiction on a daily basis with a generous portion of the twelve steps, i can CHOOSE not to exercise the option of using. being an addict does not make me broken and when i hear my peers state that they are “broken” it sends shivers up my spine. if i accept that i am broken, i have given myself an “out” to behave in “broken” ways. i am an addict and that was how i was created. whether using was a result of physical, social or cultural pressures is not relevant to who i am today.
as i approach the anniversary of my clean date, i hear more and more the voice of the part of me i call addiction, telling me that the symptoms of my “disease” are gone, so i must be “cured.” addicts of any sort do not abstain from using for decades, so i must now be “unbroken.” by using the terms that soften the blow of what i am, i set myself up for just a little drop of poison, to take the edge off living in this crazy world. i know where this addict goes when he believes that he is different from all those who have come before him and that story does not have a happy ending. just for today, i accept that i am an addict, i am not HOPELESSLY insane or broken and i will do what i need to do, to stay clean and become the person i always wanted to be, just for today.

∞ DT ∞