I have never been certain that I am an addict and only identify as one if I currently have a habit. The current orthodoxy on addiction bares little truth or accuracy to my own personal experience. I'm not sure that the opposite of addiction is sobriety any more than I think the opposite of sex addiction is celibacy. I have always loved drinking and taking drugs. A bit too much at times. Then I'll have to real it in for a while. It isn't an easy calling. Some bottle it first time they have a whitey. Others find that the diverse, infinite and interesting states of consciousness that are achievable are just too scary. Perhaps being already perched too close to madness, playing with the chemistry of the brain and subsequent expansions of the minds possibilities is just too dangerous for them. I respect that. I'm no athlete and steer clear of rock climbing as I wouldn't last long in that game. Sadly we are reaching a cultural stage where virtually all drug and alcohol use is being seen through the lens of addiction. The lowering of the bar in mental health has seen on one hand some superficial acceptance of people who twenty years ago would have been told to sort their shit out. Prince Harry came out confessing to mental health problems he suffered when his mother died. A category of experience we would once have seen as natural grief. Not a faulty human system but a human system operating exactly as would be expected following such a trauma. This down grading of mental health hasn't been met with government funding instead cuts have seen seriously mentally ill people lost to the system. Homeless as the Harry's of the world find therapy and counsel. From the age of 14 I took drugs recreationally. It wasn't until taking a job that I was wholly unsuited to in my early thirties that I drank in an unhealthy manner. And it wasn't until using heroin daily for a few months I understood what addiction was. These down sides are easily counterbalanced by the great and joyous times I have enjoyed. Years later I found myself in groups with compulsive cannabis smokers, far lesser smokers than I had been throughout university where I'd not considered it problematic, in discussion with myself and far worse druggies, grouped together as though we had something in common. This is not to dismiss their issues only that no amount of cannabis use can give a person any insight into heroin addiction. Later I came to learn that having experienced heroin addiction gives little insight into crack addiction, or gambling addiction for that matter. What I do believe is that a healthy human exposed to addictive drugs, if they have healthy minds and bodies, will become addicted. This isn't a flawed individual lacking moral fibre it is the predictable outcome. Perhaps this current fashion to group together often quite different behaviour patterns under the common umbrella of 'addiction' is misguided. I am in no way trying to underestimate the damage caused by habitual behaviours but I am saying that there are many different patterns. It is quite common to have a physiological dependence on a drug with no obsessive or self destructive aspect. For twenty years, having been prescribed bupronorphine I lived a healthy productive life. Never increasing my dose, never noticing that I had an addiction until I ran out. This is a far cry from the dehumanising ambivalent shifts that the crackhead or gambler endures. The swing from determination never to use or bet again to the polar opposite of determination to score at all costs. It is this condition, this devastating ambivalence that is the true destroyer of the person. I have known, still know drinkers and druggies that have never known this ambivalence. Happily hell bent on getting off their heads. And to be fair to them, if they have no dependents and seek no medical help and don't steal or fight or hurt anyone then surely that is their right. I can think of many more people driving cars, using up resources, engaged in business that is legal but causes only environmental and human damage yet maintain a smart appearance and don't enjoy a drink or a smoke that are considered upstanding citizens. These sober types, especially the ex addicts who garner applause for 20 years being straight headed, as though this peculiar choice was anything more than that. Just a slightly odd choice. Like celibacy. Not something to be scoffed at but neither something worthy of applause. Just a peculiarity. Like being a Stockport County fan. Or a train spotter. Of interest to them and them alone.
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