My name is Jonathan. I’m not writing this for attention, I’m not writing this for some weird pity-party or because I like to talk about myself (even though I do). I’m not writing this to win some online award, or start a blog or any of that. I’m writing this because I wanted to bring attention to a topic that has been constantly coming up in my life lately. This idea that addiction is a choice and not a disease.

I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict. I call myself an addict for three reasons: one physical, one mental and one spiritual. Physically, whenever I put a drink or a drug in my body, on nearly every occasion ever (and there were obviously countless occasions, so we have a great sample size), I could not control myself after the first sip of liquor, hit of weed, line of coke, shot of dope, etc. It was never a matter of “wanting” to control it and it was never a matter of “trying” to control it. It just kind of happens.

The first time I really ever drank, I was every proverbial suburban parents’ dream: I resided at a Catholic, private high school, had a 3.5 GPA, was in marching band, played AAU basketball year-round and was in honors classes. I’m just trying to set the stage for all of you. I wasn’t a perfect kid by any means, especially behind closed doors.

But, externally, things were looking pretty solid. There was no outside circumstance that drove me to drink the way I did that first night. There wasn’t really much thought about whether I was going to get drunk or just have a few, I just ended up getting completely drunk. But, if you told me that night that 6 years later I would’ve attended 11 rehabs total, had been a convicted felon, homeless, jobless and standing in front of my “friend’s” mirror with a needle in my neck desperately trying to get scrapes of heroin to either get me high or maybe kill me so that I didn’t have to go back to rehab again, I would’ve told you you were lying.

I also would have probably yelled at you and told you to mind your own business. And even if I did believe it, I don’t think it would've mattered anyway.

See, I’ve never milked a beer. I’ve never “went out for drinks” with friends. I’ve never had a glass of wine before bed. I never took a couple hits of weed and “was good." I never “tried coke once and didn’t like it." No, I blacked out nearly every time I drank, I smoked pot all day and I sniffed cocaine until my nose bled and heart felt like it was going to pop. I sniffed heroin once and didn’t like it, so I shot it to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything and then proceeded to do it for the better part of the next two years. Why did I do these things?

The simple answer is that I do have a disease.

People don’t seem to like that word for some reason. The stark fact is that most non-alcoholics can’t seem to wrap their minds around the fact that drugs and alcohol do something for me that they don’t do for you. Something different happens to my body, mind and spirit when I put a substance in my body. Look, I get it, we're not exactly the most savory people to be around when we're actively using. I can speak for myself at least. I lied, cheated, stole and did die terrible things to anyone in my path to the next one no matter how close to me you were. Maybe that's why so many people have a problem with it being called a disease. So, I can entertain the other side of the argument and say it was a choice.

Yes, you’re right. It was a choice. Nobody forced liquor down my throat or tied me up and held me down while they stuck a needle in my arm. You got me there. But here's the kicker: IT’S DEEPER THAN THAT. Yes, I chose to use, but I didn’t choose when I stopped. Here’s an example: when I was 15 years old at a friend’s Sweet 16 and started drinking with seemingly everyone else at the party, do you think that I would’ve made the choice to end up in the E.R. getting my stomach pumped because I drank way more than intended?

Or how about years later when I was at my father’s beach house and everyone was casually drinking and smoking pot, but I ended up drinking, smoking pot, taking pills and more even though when the night started I swore to myself I would control myself and only drink and smoke weed? That night, I ended up blacking out on the toilet and my sister thought I had overdosed and died while everyone was upstairs carrying on with their night. Or the countless nights where I drove to a casual party such as previously described, and knowing I’d need to pass a drug test the next day, I’d promise myself I would only drink. But by 6 a.m., I would have done other things and left wondering how the hell it happened.

Something happens to my body when I put any substance in it. I don't care; it could be air duster (which I’ve done) and within sometimes a day, sometimes a week, sometimes a whole month, I’m back doing everything and anything I can in mass quantities and hurting anyone I need to in my way backing me off from the next one.

Those terrible things I did to keep going in spite of all the misery I felt on a daily, monthly and yearly basis was not a choice I ever thought I was going to be making. I can’t get enough drugs or alcohol. There is just no such thing as enough for someone like me and the worst part is I will die before I get enough. Because the more I do, the worse I feel, the more harm I cause in pursuit of the next one. It’s this sickening cycle of shame. It’s been said that all addiction starts with pain and ends with pain, and this is brutally accurate.

Further than the physical aspect of the disease, there’s this mental aspect. This obsession that I cannot control and never asked for. No matter how long I am away from drinking and drugs, I still obsess about it (luckily, with the program I work today I do not feel it anymore). After that first night I drank, I thought about that night constantly until finally I was able to get loaded again. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard about a normal person experiencing this. Because it’s one thing to look back on a night and be like “Wow! That was sick! Can’t wait till we do it again!".

But it’s different to romanticize that night for weeks on end after it happened and consider it the best night of your life because it was the first time ever you felt ok. It’s different to want that feeling back more than anything going on in front of you in the day.

This obsession just gets worse as time goes on, however, to the point where, even when I am in a lockdown treatment facility because of all the harm my use has caused others years down the line, I still think about that one night, or a different time I used where it was amazing.

I will consciously block out and deny the fact that my using has screwed up my life completely and I think about that one night when I was 14 to continue to justify why it is ok. Because the great obsession of every true alcoholic, (and I’m paraphrasing from a different book now) is that we will one day be able to control and enjoy our drinking like normal people do. The reality is that this is not a reality for me.

I will never be able to have a drink at a family function. I will never, one day down the line, be able to have a glass of wine on a business trip or at some other function (this doesn’t even remotely sound like a scenario that’ll be in my future anyway). I won’t be able to toast champagne at a wedding, or “go out for drinks” after work. It’s not something that will happen. There’s a difference between normal drinkers (most people), hard drinkers and me.

Normal drinkers can have a glass of wine, or beer, and take it or leave it; can put it down with no problem whatsoever. Every now and then, they may get a little drunker than they intended to, swear it off and move on with their life after suffering from a hangover.

Hard drinkers, or physical addicts as I call them, may go on binges. May even find it hard to stop drinking at times, but can really stop if they put their mind to it. Some people like this may even need to go to rehab to stop, they may have been prescribed Percocet from a doctor or something and became physically addicted. But eventually they do just stop, with or without outside help and just swear it off kind of how a normal drinker would. I even see a lot of these people who were physically addicted to something practicing controlled drinking without any issues later on in life.

But then, there’s someone like me, who just seems doomed. Who, no matter what, whether it is 10+ arrests, 11 treatment centers, juvenile detention, two hospitalizations and a couple overdoses that were unaccounted for and I somehow lived through, that cannot seem to stop….. what sets me apart? It’s the things that I’m describing. I’m trying to paint this picture here for you guys.

Even to this point, however, you may not be convinced that I had control over this thing, which brings me to my third, final, and most important argument: the spiritual aspect of this disease. I’m sorry if this gets a little too deep for the reader, but it’s just the truth.

Ever since I can remember, I didn’t feel good about myself, about the world around me. I felt like I was out of place, I felt like anything I did was wrong, I had this uncontrollable self-centeredness about me. I never felt right no matter what, I had this hole inside of me. This is before I ever even used drugs or alcohol.

I knew I wasn’t good enough, I knew I wasn’t smart enough, funny enough ,attractive enough to be liked by you or myself or to make it in this world. Everything I did just felt wrong and everything I did to try to make myself feel better was never enough. Perhaps this is the most important part of my disease. See, I never chose to feel this way. I just did. I hated it, I was practically jumping out of my own skin all the time.

So, I started doing things to feel better about myself, looking outside of myself for solutions to an inner problem. I just didn’t know I had an inner problem. I thought that this was how everyone felt. Lying, being the class clown at school, hooking up with girls and dating multiple girls, doing sports I didn't like, etc. And none of these solutions worked so I started stealing, cutting myself, and then one day, when I was 14 and I resided at a Catholic, private high school, had a 3.5 GPA, was in marching band, played AAU basketball year-round and was in honors classes, I decided to pick up for the first time. Which brings me full circle.

See, drugs and alcohol are a small part of my problem. Drugs and alcohol are just inanimate objects created in labs, in factories, in fields or in “trap-houses” Actually, drugs and alcohol are a symptom of my problem. Reality is my real problem. I am my real problem. The idea that I “need” to feel good all the time, that happiness needs to come from an outside source, that I need to know the purpose of life and the meaning of existence because it’s just too depressing to be a part of otherwise…. that is my problem.

Drugs, women, booze, overeating, under-eating, lying, stealing, posting on Instagram… They are the symptoms. This idea that material solutions and instant gratification is going to change the way I feel inside needs to be smashed for me… on a daily basis, otherwise I’m succceptal to all of them, and I do none of them in moderation.

This thing I have, this disease… it isn't going anywhere. It's with me just as much today, as I sit here with 513 days sober typing this article for whatever reason, as it was with me when I was in a dark, bar bathroom with a flickering light overhead sniffing cocaine off of a sketchy dude's knife (yeah, that happened).

Even after everything I've been through using, and everything I’ve been through sober, even with this clean time, this money, this car, this steady job that pays me way too much, this newfound social life, these muscles and tattoos I’ve gained over the past year and a half or so… Even with all of that, I’ll unconsciously throw it all away to drink “just one time” if I don’t work my program today. If I don’t sleep on this thing, if I do my best today to be a better me than I used to be and a better me than I was yesterday, if I do the things that are suggested by others to stay sober today and do the same things I did that kept me sober when I first started this amazing journey, I’ll make it through today without picking up a drink or a drug and hopefully without acting out on any other selfish behavior today.

But if I don’t do those things today, I’m at risk.

And even with all the changes I’ve made and how amazing my life is today compared to what it was, (and at this moment it is incredible and I’m more content than I’ve ever been), I’ll go back, and I’ll probably die next time I’m out there because I came really close this last time.

If I’m off for so much as a week, that bottle of Jameson starts to look really good. And the honest truth is, even with everything, it still looks good a lot of the time. But there’s no need for it if I'm working my program today. Staying in the moment, staying in today, being right here, right now, I’m reminded that everything is ok. In fact, everything is exactly how it is supposed to be right now.

And if I can continue to accept the world around me and myself in the true, honest, pure form it is in, then I have nothing to worry about and I have no need to change anything about how things are or how I feel. In this moment, right here, there is everything I ever needed to be okay. When I leave that moment and look at the future or the past with clouded vision, I am surely in trouble. Because worry starts, and depression starts, and guilt starts, and thus the hamster wheel that is my head starts spinning.

So I keep it really small today. My life, my sobriety, my happiness….. all lie within these 24 hours, or really, this exact second that is right now. That is the only way for me to look at things because I have a disease that is truly cunning, baffling and powerful. A disease that no amount of time can cure a disease that no amount of wishful thinking can cure... a disease that can only be conquered by a continued spiritual experience.

And if you actually read up to this point and it still makes no sense to you, congratulations! You're a normal person! Maybe this made sense, maybe it didn't, but hopefully it helped you, because in a weird way, it helped me. And if you're still reading and still want an answer from the perspective of someone who is an addict… it is a choice. But it is also a disease. It’s both.