What I Miss About Being a Drug Addict is the Same Thing You’re Missing in Your Life
Years ago, instead of spending my days musing over my life, or contemplating goals, or taking any action whatsoever to accomplish anything at all, I used to just smoke heroin off of tin foil and call it a day.
I was really good at it.
I never used needles, so I guess you couldn’t say I was professional user just yet, but I was on the varsity squad at the very least.
Another year or two in the game and there’s no doubt I would have been heading for the big leagues. Scouts had their eye on me, that’s for sure.
There’s an odd sentiment that I share with the friends who were there with me during those hedonic times, splashing together in the shallows of the black tar pool as we carelessly floated our way into the deep end. It’s a sentiment we felt guilty of admitting at first but couldn’t help relating to.
Years after we had all gotten clean and were living entirely different lives than we had been in the old drugs days, we would talk about how much better it was to not be so obsessively fixated on a such a meaningless thing. We’d laugh at how much we used to care about the contents of tiny little baggies and how we literally scheduled our entire lives around locating them.
It was like the worst possible version of Pokemon Go. Instead of driving around to different city parks and using the pokeballs on our phone to capture cute cartoon creatures to battle with our friends, we would drive around to different ghettos and use the cash in our pockets to capture crusty cursed narcotics to battle with our brains.
My friends and I would talk of these times and in the midst of reminiscing would realize that we were reluctantly fond of those memories. As much as we regretted how long we let those years drag on for, we couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgia for them.
We actually missed those days.
It was a sentiment that we only felt safe admitting to each other because those days were so far behind us that there wasn’t any possible way we would ever let ourselves slip back into that life. Nonetheless, we admitted it.
A small part of us missed the days where we would wake up and only have one thing on our minds.
There was one plan, one objective.
Everything else in life was not only secondary but couldn’t even be started until we had successfully completed Numero Uno on our list.
After that, whatever else happened to be on our agenda was either done with a smile or wasn’t done at all. Either was fine. Errands and responsibilities were inconsequential. Going to work was entirely tolerable. Life itself just wasn’t that hard anymore.
The main problem was taken care of, so all of the ordinary speedbumps of life were shaved flat. It was nothing but smooth sailing.
As much as we could feel our lives falling apart every morning when we went through withdrawals, we still had the gift of a singular mind. We knew what we needed to do, and we became as resourceful as we needed to be to get it done. Neither sweat nor shiver would get in our way.
It’s this state of mind my friends and I would discuss, and that kind of singular focus that we missed.
When you boil your life down to a single task, everything becomes exponentially easier. You are perfectly aware of what to do next and what doesn’t matter. It simplifies everything and makes where you’re going crystal clear.
Years after the drugs days, we were all living normal lives. We now had to deal with the countless small annoyances of daily life, a litany of adult-sized decisions, and a never-ending to-do list where you can never really decide what needs to be at the top.
We no longer had the anchor of priority.
We were free from the debilitating haze we had been walking through, but now we had no sense of direction or map for where to go next. The curse had been lifted, but when we opened our eyes we felt like the same people we had been years before we were ever introduced to that powdered sorcery. Only now we were older, and with zero accumulated knowledge to guide us forward.
We were left with one skill, though; something that I’ve been able to utilize multiple times over the years since unsticking myself from the swamp.
Understanding the power of obsession.
If you’ve never experienced true physical and mental addiction then it may be hard to relate to that kind of toxic fixation.
For those that have been through it, it’s easier to grasp. We know the power of singular priority. We understand how much easier things can become when you only have one thing on your mind. The hard part is being able to utilize that same single-mindedness for other healthier and more productive goals.
This is where I think ex-addicts may even have a leg up on people who have never experienced addiction, yet still can’t seem to get things done. They don’t have context for how it even feels to be obsessed with a single action, and it’s that feeling of tunnel-vision that you need to have to continually return to your habit of choice.
Here’s the big secret in all of this and something I started to notice towards the end of my era of addiction: Pursuing the thing you want feels better than actually getting it.
Once you start pursuing something every day to the point where you’re doing it without even thinking, the result of that effort doesn’t matter nearly as much as they act of the effort itself.
For example, I can’t even tell you how many hours I’ve wasted waiting on my dope man. I would spend all day waiting and calling and texting and waiting and finally, once he eventually got back to me, waiting some more. Lou Reed knows what I’m talkin’ about.
It was torture, not being able to simply begin moving towards my goal.
It’s the same kind of torture people feel in self-paralysis, waiting around for a special signal that it’s suddenly the right time to start moving.
Once my guy got back to me and told me where to meet him, however, the anticipation of knowing that I was about to feel a million times better would make me start feeling better as soon as I hung up the phone. As this article on gambling addiction says “The high is in expecting an outcome, desiring it, imagining it, not in its fulfillment.”
My mind and body would feel so relieved on the drive to meet him that I almost didn’t even care about buying the shit anymore.
…almost.
There were so many times when I felt great driving to meet my guy, got my stuff, drove back home giddy as a school girl, and when I finally got set up and inhaled that first hellfire hit, I immediately felt deflated.
It was over.
Maybe my body felt a little better because the aches and pains were gone, but I wasn’t excited anymore. I didn’t feel a sense of hope or optimism. I had caught the prey and fed and now just had blood all over my face wondering what I was doing with my life.
It was only in those moments of anticipation and moving towards a singular goal that I truly felt a sense of purpose.
Sure, at the time that purpose was buying overly priced black tar heroin in the parking lot of a Panera Bread, but by God was it glorious. Because I knew what my mission was. I had the anchor of absolute priority and a path to my goal in front of me.
Addiction is a powerful driving force.
It gives us an overwhelming reason to act.
It pulls people in all sorts of wild directions in the pursuit of one thing. It’s that sense of priority that so many people are still searching for and why so many things seem so hard to accomplish for them.
We question our motives, our direction, and most importantly, our purpose. We don’t anchor ourselves to a single habit and so we end up floating all over the place looking for a coastline.
If this addict can tell you anything it’s this: Find your priority. Find your anchor. Find your non-negotiable Number One on your list.
Put yourself into the mind of a drug addict and treat the single cornerstone habit that’s going to push your life forward like you won’t even be able to function throughout the rest of your day unless you get that done first.
I’m doing it right now.
I’ve decided that the hours between 7–10am are my new anchor. That’s the time in which I clear my head with meditation, do some journaling, and write/publish/do profile or website maintenance.
It has been my non-negotiable time block which functions at the launch pad for the rest of my day. I cannot initiate the rest of my day until I sit here and do something for those three hours. Even if I sit here and stare at the wall, my ass is not leaving this chair.
I’m not going to see immediate results, but acting like an addict will eventually get me addicted to it. Only instead of eventually overdosing I’ll hopefully eventually find some level of success. Wouldn’t that be nice.
Just remember that the result isn’t what’s important, it’s repeating the path enough times that you’ll start feeling the same sense of accomplishment from simply moving forward.
Choose your habit.
Turn it into your heroin.
But be aware that if you find yourself inhaling weird smoke or putting things up your nose, you’re going the wrong way.
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