An Open Letter to the Disease of Addiction

Dear, Disease, 

I hate you.  I know that hate is a strong word, and that hate is an emotion to be avoided in most situations because the things we hate tend to then be bound to us all the more tightly, but hate is the only appropriate word for how I feel about you.You have, once again, stolen a bright and wonderful soul from family and friends who love her, and you seek to steal more. You are a detestable scourge upon humanity and if you were a person I swear I would kick the shit out of you where you stand.  

You're a liar.  You promise peace but only bring anguish. You try to entice us with illusions of camaraderie, pictures of friends laughing at bar stools and sunny afternoons driving four wheelers across the  mountains with golden retrievers by our side. Those Sunday afternoon Budweiser commercials look so "American", so much like a harmless, lazy summer day.  What you really bring us, if we're addicts, is isolation.  After awhile, we can barely stand to be with ourselves, let alone with anyone else.  Even the mirror is too much to bear. 

You're a thief. You steal our friends, our fathers, our mothers, our brothers and sisters, our looks, our youth, our jobs, and, when you're at your very worst, our lives. You whisper in our ear that we can quit after just one more drink, one more hit, one more pull, one more score.  We can't.  That last time might truly be the last time, and, even if we survive the night, you will be right back at our ear whispering again the next day. You're a seductive bitch.    

You never give us enough. Ever ever ever.  You lure us in with promises of how lovely we will feel, how the troubles of our day will simply melt into oblivion as we slowly melt into a state of drooling stupidity, but those problems are there with glaring honesty the next morning, accompanied by regret, self loathing, and possibly just a touch of confusion at how we allowed you to completely take the wheel in our lives yet again.  Because one of anything you entice us with is never enough to push us over that edge. Neither is two, or three, or four.  Enough is when we can't lift a bottle/glass/syringe/mirror/whatever again.  Enough is when we're flat out, or possibly flat lined.  And that's not enough either, because when and if we come to, we'll be reaching out for you again, hoping that the next time we seek solace in your wicked arms one will be enough to get us to our "happy place".  

I hate you. I will hate you forever.  I hate you for my Dad, my cousin, Lisa, Sky, Drew, and so many others who I will refrain from mentioning because some of them are working at keeping you out of their lives and might not want to be put on record.  You suck. I hope in the new year you will stay far the hell away from the people I care about.  Fuck you.