Shackles

“The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken”.

Samuel Johnson

I have never found a more relatable quote. My childhood could have served as a bill board for social services. Bio-mom was arrested when I was born due to me being addicted to heroin. While I was detoxing in the hospital she was forced to detox in a jail cell and sit for the next six months. Growing up I was always told that I would be at high risk of addiction and that I would have a very “addictive personality”. This was drilled into my head from very early on. People may have said that I should never do drugs but what I took away from it was just don’t ever be like her. As long as I kept my “never would I evers” then I would be just fine.

NEVER would I ever use a needle. NEVER would I ever use heroin.

Looking back at my younger self, if I was able to give myself some advice with hopes of possibly altering the path of pain that was before me, what would it be? When I say that question out loud so many moments during my active addiction begin to scroll through my mind on loop. Would I offer up some hard knock truths about what is to come if I continued to abuse those opiates? Would I tell myself that true love shouldn’t be painful and leave bruises and broken self worth in its wake? Would I take that time with my younger self to explain the disease that had a hold on my bio-mother and that despite how it felt it was never because she didn’t love me. Just that advice right there would have held the power to shift so much in my life. Possibly I could have saved myself from having to walk in her exact shoes to find out that it was never about lack of love. It was about a demon that once attached it will forever either be walking with you in active addiction or lurking behind you with your every attempt to get your life back and the second you let your guard down your soul is snatched up like a $100 dollar bill in the wind.

“Hurt people hurt people. You will bleed on many people that will have never cut you if you hold on too long. So ponder it, pray on it, then get over it. You will miss out on many relationships that could have been mended had you just invested a fraction of the time spent being resentful into healing. Know your self worth. Not knowing your value will keep you in toxic relationships that will leave you more broken than when you started. Oh yea, rock bottom really does come as soon as you stop fucking digging. Go figure right!?! One last thing….there is no such thing as will power in addiction. So when they say you are at high risk for becoming addicted…..take that shit to the bank. Life isn’t going to be easy but regardless of if you take my advice or not….you will come out on top. Addiction means that you will live in constant confrontation with a side of you that wants you dead. So always respect it.”

A recovering older version of you

Its hard to avoid the chains of addiction…especially when you were born wearing them.