Addiction 101 (Part 1)

I have spent a lot of time thinking about addiction.  My whole life really.  Other people's addictions, my addictions....I went to real-life school and learned about addiction, then I went to the kind of school where you use the Bic pens to actually write things and I learned about addiction.  I work around the field of addiction....my personal life is shaped around being in remission from addiction.  I could probably be considered an expert on the subject except that I am not really sure I know anything.

So when you don't know things, if you are me, you think about them a lot.  A LOT.  And you try and figure them out through observation and consideration, research and open-mindedness.  The last one being the hardest because when you try and be open-minded about what other people think about something....and it is a something that you have or are...it can be painful.  People don't think much of addicts sometimes.  And while I am far from the person I was when I stole things to support my habit or crashed my car because I was driving it drunk...that person is no less a part of who I am than the person who holds two degrees.  In fact, I would argue that my experiences as an addict have informed my world-view at least equally to anything else I have learned or done.  And while it has been suggested to me a time or two that I don't need to broadcast it and that perhaps I should put it behind me...I find that confusing.  

I have a degree hanging on my wall from a top-university that I barely remember getting and no one thinks I should put that behind me. I have toe-shoes from a short lived ballet career that really only existed in my mind and I still talk about that like it mattered. I climbed mountains for awhile, five years ago and yet I am still an REI member.  So what I have decided is that I cannot and will not deny any part of who I am or how I have spent most of my life.  Had I spent the last 25 years becoming an ice dancer I would talk about ice dancing....but that is not what happened. I have no idea how to dance on ice.  I have barely learned how to make ice.

When I sat down to write about addiction I quickly realized two things: 

1. I have way too much to say about it for one Blog.  At least I think.  I still haven't looked into the rules (are there rules?) or standards for Blog writing but I am pretty sure they are supposed to be written based on the attention-span of the average American.  Myself included.  So this may become a series.  If Blogs have those. This Blog does.  

2. It is hard.  Addiction is hard and fucking confusing.  How I feel about it....how you feel about it.  It is complicated and personal and it is likely much easier for a lot of people not to read about it or think about it.  It is one of those things where it is easier to just think what we want to think and then turn our heads. I get that.  So I get if you don't read or read and get bored or read and think "Fuck Megan, I never liked her anyways." Or whatever.  My intention is not to hurt anyone.  I am responding to a calling by my higher power that allows me sobriety and serenity as long as I never look away.  I have to think and write about it.  I have to spend the rest of my life trying to help figure out this massive Gobstopper of a problem.  That was the deal.  Sometimes I wonder if I have made a deal with the Devil because I wish I didn't have to think about it.  I wish I could get a nice job at a ball park holding headphones or as a recorded voice reminding you of your doctor's appointments; I wish I thought about movie sequels or what is on sale at Sephora....but that was not the deal.  The deal was clear and I took it because my life depends on it and I think life is an o.k. thing.

So.  Let's rip the band-aid off.  Pull the covers back. Addiction.  Let's talk about it.  Let's think about it.  Let's face it and face ourselves.  Are you in?