We are all addicts. Whether we like to believe it or not, we all have addictions. As a word, addiction has a negative connotation implied whenever discussed, but it’s not necessarily always a harmful attribute to have—at least that’s what we think. We make it a harmful word because we push ourselves to a breaking point instead of giving up the habit. Not giving the habit up before we finally crack is what makes it an addiction in a negative way.
Some of the most common addictions are drugs, alcohol, sex, food, etc. but we forget that we can be addicted to healthy things as well. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, yet we all do it. There's something all of us cannot live without, something we are addicted to.
It’s in our human makeup to like the extreme, even if we don’t classify ourselves as extremists. As long as we are pushing our bodies and minds further than they should go, we are extremists. That’s a loose interpretation of the word, but it is an accurate description.
Vegans are addicted to only organic, natural products no matter how protein deficient they can get, until one day they reach that point of weakness where they feel like they are dying. Cocaine users are the exact same, just with a different substance.
Coffee, soda, cigarettes, social media are all addictions—we just don’t classify them as addictions because it’s not as bad as other addictions.
We can get addicted to too much exercise until we tear a ligament or break an ankle. We see it all the time in athletes, but we don’t apply that to an addiction because we were doing something positive with our bodies.
We get vitamin D from the sun, so we like to pretend that when we tan we are nurturing our bodies. Tell that to the skin cancer. Those women that walk around looking like a bag of leather know what I mean, but they can't help it. The natural sun did it not the tanning bed. We also lie to ourselves. It's part of the human condition.
I procrastinate to no end. I figure it has to do with the fact that I don't ever want to finish things before the last possible second, so I don't constantly worry it's not good enough. It's a problem that I will probably never fix because I'd wait until the world was ending to address it. I’m an insomniac addicted to sleep, but for some reason I can never get sleep. I feel like I am always sleeping during the day because I love to stay up during the night, but two hours later I'm awake and that's the only amount of sleep I will get. It’s a cruel world, really. I binge-watch Netflix until my brain starts to hurt and I cut myself off for a few days, but I always go back. I think I will be fine; it was just a passing pain that won’t come back, until the migraines come back full force and I can’t even open my eyes without the stabbing pain in my head to worsen. Those are just a few of the addictions I have.
Pleasure and pain are two very distinct feelings when separated, but together they are one in the same. Pain leads to pleasure and pleasure leads to pain, and we enjoy them together. It’s like there is no good without the bad.
A cutter is addicted to the feel of pain, of having an escape from the uncontrolled agony called their lives. The same goes for all addictions. Runners love to run because it provides them with a feeling of euphoria. Abusers come home to escape their problems and instead of embracing them with open arms and a go-getter attitude, they close their fists and take it out on whoever is around, whoever can turn black and blue the best.
I have been surrounded by addictions all my life. Half of my family is addicted to narcotics and the other half is addicted to alcohol. I’ve seen firsthand how bad addictions can go. Death occurs, families grieve, all seems lost and we give up our addictions because we don’t want to be like the person lying in the coffin with the overdone make-up and the deathly pale skin.
Death is our wake up call, until it isn’t anymore. We forget what death looks like along the way, so we give into our previous habits. We think it won’t happen to us because we can stop anytime. We tell ourselves we are going to quit tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. We push back when we will stop drinking or popping pills or cutting our wrists because it’s the only thing we seem to do that actually lets us forget for a brief moment in time. It gives us pleasure to deteriorate our minds or mutilate our bodies because at least it takes the suffering away for a bit, and then we remember when it’s too late that it’s going to kill us to be addicted to pleasure. In the future, our brains are going to hurt from the drugs, our livers are going to fail from the alcohol, or limbs are going to break from the strain, and the blood will finally win the battle against blood clotting. We don’t know our own limits, and those limits destroy any semblance of normalcy we could have in the future.
Some addictions are worse than others, but we are not the addiction. We all know the consequences, but we do it anyways. It doesn't run us. We just like to believe it does, so we have an excuse not to quit. It’s hard to stop, but we can stop. Before it is too late.
