Addictions: A Relationship To
Remember
by Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
It's the addict's most important relationship – their relationship with the
bottle, the pipe, the pills, or the needle. Remember what it feels like to fall in
love? There's that crazy chemical attraction. You can't think of anything
else but seeing your lover. You feel like you'd do anything for your love.
You feel like you can't sleep or eat without thinking of them. You let
everything else go. Your work suffers. Studying hardly matters. You
spend more time out. Your friends and family have far less influence than
usual. Even those who have always been there for you, or those who you
know count on you for everything, can sometimes take a back seat to a great
love. The addict's relationship with their drug, whether it's beer, cocaine,
heroin or pharmaceuticals, exactly mimics a crazy love affair.
Sometimes people develop this love for their drug slowly. At first, they
don't quite trust the relationship. They know it feels good, but they know
they'd better be careful. They've heard that drugs can be a devilish
mistress. On the other hand, your drug could be just the thing that lets you
relax enough to deal with your day. It just takes the edge off or gives you
that little boost. But slowly you need it a little more and you start to trust.
It's not a big deal just having a little more. You deserve it, just like you
deserve to be with someone who makes you feel calm or strong or smart or
fun or attractive. How could it harm you to have a bit more? Who cares
what it costs? If others don't like it, they don't even have to know. Or, the
hell with them, you can be with anyone – that is, you can do anything – you
want!
Soon, you trust your drug more than you trust anything else. After all,
you know it well. You know what to expect from it, and you know how it
makes you feel. You feel you have control over it. You use it when you
want. When you need it again, you know where to get it. Unlike a human
being, it's reactions seem perfectly predictable. There's no reason to miss
your drug, or to feel like it might let you down. It's not like a lover who
might turn to someone else or who might not answer the phone when you
call. You always know where to find it – that is, as long as you have access
to it. If it's hard to get, though, you still know there are things you can do to
get it, even if those schemes could be uncomfortable or slimy or perhaps
even illegal.
Some people experience love at first sight, or sip, or puff, or snort, or
draw. It's as though the addict and the drug were made for each other – a
match made in heaven (and ready to burn). The addict can look at their
drug and say “you... complete me!” With this kind of addiction, you see the
happy couple together everywhere, although you don't always know the drug
is there. When they're together the addict is happy and confident and maybe
even excited or, on the other hand, calm and at peace. That the addict is
coupled is much more obvious when they're fighting with their drug. Then,
the addict is petty, ugly, mean, and/or pathetic. But they're less likely to be
seen when they're at odds with their drug because the addict withdraws and
won't be seen by anyone, but close family members (if even them).
The addict sees the relationship with the drug as just the way to escape
the pressures of everyday life and society. With the drug the addict can be
wild or just let it all go. “No one's going to control me,” the addict says to
the drug (now a buddy)... and the addict and the drug are perfect rebels
together. They sneak off to be together when they're expected to be
nearby. Yes, together they're bad, but in a way the addict thinks is cool.
When they're together, an addict and his drug can accomplish anything and
can act any way they want. No one can stop them, and they'd better not
try.
In the relationship between an addict and a drug, the sex is out of this
world, if only it weren't just a bit like masturbation. The addict feels as
though in control of the whole situation, and the orgasm comes off
impeccably every time. The addict knows every nuance of his drug – just
the right way to romance it, the perfect caress, all the right spots, all the right
moves. The addict fondles his drug and cuddles and coos. It's so sweet it
almost makes you sick. Sometimes the addict likes the romance and the
anticipation of making love. Sometimes it's just a quickie - the perfect
release. Either way, the sex is great. There's the love, the desire, the
intermingling of souls. There's also make-up sex after a dire row. Even
though you can count on your drug kicking you like it doesn't care if you're
crap, almost as though it's delivering the most perfect affront that only your
most intimate companion could know, you can count on achieving that mind-
blowing rapproachment with the inevitable reconciliation. In fact, the make-
up with ones drug is just that much better, much like make-up sex, because
the addict has been kicked like crap. After the big fight, there's the struggle
over what to do, and then a kiss to make up... and then wild make-up sex,
the pattern repeating every day like clock work, perhaps making it just that
much more compelling than a real relationship.
With all that fighting, however, after a while there can be regret.
Things start to feel a mess. Life seems to be falling apart. Just like in a
chaotic love affair, the drug gets blamed for the behavior of the addict. “I'm
not happy because of you,” the addict says, blaming the drug because it
takes up too much of the addict's time or because it entices the addict to be
lazy or mean, or because it spends too much of the addict's money. Maybe
the regret begins in the disdain felt from others or because the addict's family
seems to be hurting. Regret might even include some minimal level of taking
responsibility, and could even appear to include true self reflection, but
typically the addict is far too fragile to tolerate maintaining a responsible
view. Responsibility is interpreted by the addict as blame, and quickly turns
the addict to blaming everyone else.
Nevertheless, because of the regret, the addict tries to leave the drug.
But the drug doesn't like it. It screams in the addicts ears and claws at the
addict's intestines. Like a scorned lover, the drug alternately allures the
addict and then, if the addict tries to resist, gets pissed and slashes the
addict's tires or tries to break the windows out of the addict's home. The
drug might actually appear to give up at times, but the addict, not fully
understanding the vulnerability within, is lonely and an easy target for a
return to the torrid love of the drug.
If only the drug somehow gets to see the addict somewhere
unexpectedly. The drug doesn't want to be left, and feeling abandoned, will
do anything to get the addict back. It can be tricky, and though the addict in
recovery tries like hell to take things one day at a time, the drug slyly seeps
through every crack in the addict's recovery armor. Every difficulty during
the day, every memory of what's “cool,” everyone to whom the addict is
attracted, happy times, sad times, conflict and resolution, everything...
absolutely everything leads the addict to the drug. And for some inexplicable
reason, all memory of misery from the drug is so easily forgotten. Where
recovery requires responsibility that the addict interprets as taking the blame,
and thus other people are hard to face, the drug soothes and tells the addict
that all is well. The addict is supremely vulnerable and desperately needs the
perceived love of the drug. Most of the time, thus, the breakup between the
addict and the drug is short, or at least not permanent, no matter how much
regret the relationship might have previously generated.
So now I speak to you. Yes, you! You the addict, or you, the person
who is in a relationship with the addict, yes, I am speaking to you. The
relationship with the drug is the only relationship that really matters to the
addict. You, the addict, you know this is true. You are thinking so much
more about your drug than you are about your loved ones. You just can't
wait till you meld with your lover (the drug) again. Is there any person about
whom you feel like that? You, the person involved with the addict, you do
not have a relationship – at least it should be clear that you have no
relationship while the drug is still cheating with your lover. The addict is not
there for you. The addict is there for the drug. If the addict is with you,
then you have something to do with the drug, or are tolerated as a necessary
sideshow. You, the addict, fess up, you're not even really there with your
lover. You're wherever you need to be where you know you'll get your
drug. If your lover will let you use the drug, or maybe even help you use it
or acquire it, of course it's okay with you to have them around. But you, the
person who thinks you have a relationship with the addict, what do you think
will happen when you challenge your love's relationship with the drug. The
addict may try to convince you to stay. The addict might tell you how
desperate they are that you not abandon them. They might even betray the
drug for the moment in seemingly heart-felt repentances. But most likely,
the addict will leave you before they leave the drug.
To you, the addict, you must realize you can have only one true love.
You should not expect your human lover to understand your relationship
with your drug any more than you could expect them to understand if you
were courting their best friend. To you, the human lover, please don't
understand your addict's dalliance with the drug. Your understanding merely
makes you a chump who is abetting your addict's infidelity. To you both, if
you do truly want to be together, there is no room for this drug or any drug
in your relationship. Where there's any addiction involved in relationships
between people, every day into the future will remain in vigilance to
overcome the drug's incessant seduction. To you both, please, please, if you
are in a relationship where there has been a relationship with a drug, you
must understand, addiction is the relationship to remember.