I made several resolutions last week despite never desiring to make New Year resolutions. It’s a product of bad timing. I broke down on New Year’s Eve.
Seattle will not be my excuse. I’d blame it on loneliness and desperation based on being in a new place with few friends and little to do, and you would believe me. But it wouldn’t be true. The rain factors not (I actually don’t mind rain… much).
My break down has little to do with location. It’s related to me and mistakes I’ve made. I don’t know enough about psychology or any scientific or religious system to tell me how I’ve developed emotionally into this person, but I am prone to addiction.
If you’ve never had opportunity to notice, let me inform you: addictions are harmful. Dangerous. Disguised. Sneaky. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive.
The worst part for me has been the awareness. I’m aware of the harmfulness of addiction. I see it hurting me. I see the potential for it to hurt others through me.
When you were a child, did you ever dream and fantasize about alcohol? Did it ever seem to be the best way to spend a night?
Somehow the world of adults in our society becomes consumed by alcohol. At my present job, my peers plot Saturday night outings to downtown where they can bump, grind, and get immensely drunk. People share stories of drunken adventures to see who has the coolest tales and who can claim to be the toughest drinker.
Then one day a man can wake up and realize he drank the night away in solitude. The hangover sucks, but worse still is the realization of defeat. See before you the man beaten again by addiction. One more night in a finite life destroyed by liquor. Where will it stop?
He knows it’s not the first time he’s failed. He need merely think back a week to a similar event. He sees what’s happening.
The man cries as he sits in his chair reading AA literature and contemplating his state of existence. What did he do to let addiction gain such a hold?
(To Be Continued…)