Page 4
Who Is An Addict
from the outside world. Anything not completely familiar became alien and dangerous. Our world shrank and isolation became our life. We used in order to survive. It was the only way of life we knew.
Some of us used, misused and abused drugs and still never considered ourselves addicts. Through all of this, we kept telling ourselves, “I can handle it”. Our misconceptions about the nature of addiction conjured up visions of violence, street crime, dirty needles and jail.
When our addiction was treated as a crime or moral deficiency, we became rebellious and were driven deeper into isolation. Some of the highs felt great, but eventually the things we had to do in order to support our using reflected desperation. We were caught in the grip of our disease. We were forced to survive any way we could. We manipulated people and tried to control everything around us. We lied, stole, cheated and sold ourselves. We had to have drugs, regardless of the cost. Failure and fear began to invade our lives.
One aspect of our addiction was our inability to deal with life on its terms. We tried drugs and combinations of drugs in an effort to cope with a seemingly hostile world. We dreamed of finding a magic formula that would solve our ultimate problem – ourselves. The fact was that we could not successfully use any mind-altering or mood-changing substance, including marijuana and alcohol. Drugs ceased to make us feel good.
At times, we were defensive about our addiction and justified our right to use, especially when we had “legal prescriptions”. We were proud of the sometimes illegal and often bizarre behavior that typified our using. We “forgot” the times we sat alone consumed by fear and self-pity. We fell into a pattern of selective thinking. We only remembered the “good” drug experiences. We justified and rationalized the things we had to do to keep from being sick or going crazy. We ignored the times when life seemed to be a nightmare. We avoided the reality of our addiction.
Higher mental and emotional functions, such as conscience
