Weaning Off [NoJoMo #29]

[maybe it’s chains that set you free.]

Dear addiction,
You have not been benevolent towards me in the past. Day after day, new thing after new thing, I am lost in you. You drag me down into the darkness where I can only hear my heartbeat slamming against the walls. There are several things that you bind me to, things which I choose to not dissolve before its too late. Sigh. It’s always too late, isn’t it? I am beckoned and so easily I follow, like a blind sheep stumbling for the security of the pasture gates.

So this, right here, is what weaning off feels like?
There is nothing more potent than my drug, nor will there ever be, but maybe that’s a sign that I should stay safely away, stay in my world. Risks have never been my strong suit, and yet I had no problem with this one. So strongly I swam against the current once it turned on me, determined to drag me into the darkness. My head has been slammed under ominous waves only to resurface, and the tired game is poisonous. I trust in the safe world I have built, and yet a hungry part of me still yearns to break free of the lines and limitations. That’s you, addiction, isn’t it? Screaming like demons, thrashing with insanity, the consuming need to break free of my constrictions. Inside my head I avoid all confrontation with you, cautious of my weaknesses. Presented with the opportunity, I still resist all temptation in the face of possible recreation of the bleak past. Yet inside, I am still blackly, coldly envisioning ways to bring about my own demise in order to satiate that thirst (that, quite frankly, has always been insatiable).

Logic is fighting you, addiction. It’s so difficult, you know, to fight that comfort being presented. Memories are dark and pleading, and the future is so curiously unknown that it seems tantalizing. I could take those offers being presented, and I could let it melt like honey in my bloodstream; I could get that fix I’ve been after. Sometimes, I want to drop the shackles around my feet that bind me to my warm security for that fix. And then something cold, even colder than you, addiction, gives me pause…. the logic. The heart-wrenching past that has brought me so pitifully to me knees again and again. The intuition, showing me the inevitable darkness I will face yet again if I so choose to pursue. So I don’t.

It’s painful. It feels like lying in a bed of razorblades. No… surely razorblades, in comparison, feel like a bed of feathers and cotton. I want it. I want it so badly that sometimes I can’t help but lie awake and feel the pain burn through me. My heart has been wrenched from my chest a thousand times, and this is no different. This too shall pass, I tell myself, in time. And slowly, as sleep is crawling in, the pain recedes and ebbs. This pain comes from the weaning off of my drug, my fix, my unduplicatable high.

So long, sweet drug. Until we meet again, if at all, I can’t allow myself to fall into the darkness, with insanity crawling down my spine at every malevolent turn. Not when I’ve found a glow that warms the cold, that burns up the dark. It is in no way comparable, but it is nowhere near as crippling. What can I say? You’re just my brand of heroin. Until you become safe once again; goodnight, my love.

Love always,
Amanda.