Timeless Wounds of Addiction

Addiction is a strange and strangely powerful thing; in its grip, time does not heal all wounds.  

For me it was booze and coke but not in equal measure: the Bolivian Marching Powder held its sway so much tighter.  I fell head over heels in luv with the dopamine rush, giving me what I imagined was a flavor of the happiness normal folks felt day-to-day.  I was alive for the first time.  I haven't touched the shit since September 1994 and yet just now - February 2014, nearly twenty years later - all it takes to trigger the old gut hollowing anticipation is a news special on street drugs where undercover reporters are shown buying dope in Philly on the very same corners I bought coke.  Those corners, those memories, that feeling.

Those pictures of Aramingo Avenue are ringing the old Pavlovian dinner bell and I catch myself salivating.  I've been dry less than eight years and yet haven't come close to the coke-strength craving for booze.  I was drinking every day all day in the bloom of my active alcoholism circa 2006 whereas my cocaine use was limited to a dozen weekends a year with a couple week long binges thrown in for bad measure during a mere six season run.  Almost twenty years ago.  But there it is, rumbling up smack dab in through my gut.

I write this just a few days since one of my favorite artists, actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, died of a heroin overdose.   He'd been clean and sober for over twenty-two years before falling back into the briny deep in 2012 and less than two years later is found dead with a needle in his arm surrounded by over fifty bags of dope.

Time does not heal all wounds.  

And certainly doesn't heal chronic diseases like addiction.  You have to be vigilant. Try not to let the "fuck it"s worm their way back into your life as they're the prime breeding ground for a relapse.  Get to therapy, get on antidepressants if needed, exercise even if you don't feel like it (it kicks your endorphins into gear).   Also, don't consider a relapse the end of the world.  This might sound counter intuitive to staying clean but it's very important.  A relapse is serious and something you must make a priority of avoiding; however, if it happens the last thing you want is an "I blew everything so might as well keep using to the point of oblivion" attitude.    It's a statistical fact that when addicts relapse after an extended sobriety they rarely ease back into use but rather immediately plunge in deeper than they ever have.  I think this is usually because the addict wants to destroy the thoughts of having "failed" sobriety.

Relapse is not inevitable and if it happens you can get back on the wagon.   I was sober for 14 months in 1993/1994 but relapsed to my best friend cocaine, and subsequently to alcohol as a necessary come down when the coke ran out.  That binge lasted a week and I haven't touched the white powder since but the boozing continued for another dozen years.  Still, I managed to put a plug in that too.  It hasn't, for the most part, been a struggle for me this time around.  I'm pretty sure I'd have stayed off the booze entirely if I hadn't run into my coke dealer and knocked that domino down.  I can't say for sure what I'd do if I bumped into him today, though I'd like to think things'd be different.  The antidepressants I'm on would have a lot to do with making the right decision.  And let's face it: I didn't just "run into" the dude in '94.  I deliberately put myself in the old neighborhood and practically stalked him before making a "casual" encounter. 

No, time does not heal all wounds.

You have to keep treating them.