Addiction can take over your life.

I believe that addiction can take over your life. I’ve mentioned many times in the past how I feel about drug and alcohol use. Just the thought of a friend of a loved one using either breaks my heart. It’s hard to imagine it ever happening to you, but trust me when I say that addiction is one of the scariest things in the world. You lose complete control over your actions and end up spending every second of every day hating yourself for it. When I voice my disapproval for drugs and alcohol, people tend to think that I’m just trying to ruin their fun or seem more mature. They think I have no idea what I’m talking about. But I know addiction. For four years I have been enslaved by a self destructive habit. Although it’s not one of the most obvious or conventional addictions, I’m currently going through a few of the more serious side affects of years of abuse.

About a month ago, I experienced a bit of a shock. I went to the doctor for a regular checkup and in the span of thirty minutes I was told that I have a tumor on my thyroid and that my liver is failing. It wasnt hard to believe. I’m not a healthy person. I eat too much junk food and I dont exercise. Despite that, I knew the real cause. I could feel my mom staring at me with watery eyes. She knew the cause too. In that moment, I first acknowledged my problem. My problem, not my addiction. I figured it would be an easy fix. I’d just stop and everything would go back to normal. Except–I dont remember what normal is. I don’t know how to function like every other person. It’s been so long since I’ve succumbed that I don’t remember how to just live. After a week of trying to resist and failing, I realized that it wasnt going to be as easy as I hoped. I lie and deceive myself. I’m my own worse enemy. I’m an addict.

Four years and I never considered it an addiction. Every time it happened, I’d tell myself that it was the last time. It was never the last time. It’s a constant struggle. There’s blind panic when you try to resist. Laying there on the bathroom floor just crying and struggling to breathe, all you can think is “How could I let this happen to me? How could I have let it get this bad?”

Addiction can ruin your life. It’ll make you hate yourself. And in the end, it will kill you if you let it. So I’m sorry if it annoys you that I don’t want to hear about drunken nights out. I’m sorry I can’t be accepting of your drug habits. Addiction doesn’t happen to everyone, but if you knew how painful addiction is, you wouldn’t even think of risking it.