Middle Ground

Waiting silently in the diagnosis is a bottle filled with bad memories and scientific intentions that will lead you on a path of destruction. A bottle filled with sorrow and pain that will send you shivering into places you can’t possibly understand. Your trust will be destroyed by the bitter pills you have to swallow.

You never thought for a minute a trip to the pharmacy would send you on an “Alice in Wonderland” adventure. We have not yet acknowledged that our view of the addict is so misconstrued that we don’t recognize the signs for fear of the truth. The truth that the dealer hands you death as a cure in the form of a prescription. The middleman hides behind the counter of a store filled with supplements, lotions, and 12 packs of Coke at 3 for $12.00. The addict rushes through the “Dive Thru” window in order to get back to work or not drag the 3 kids out of their car seats and listen to them beg for candy while waiting on the hand off. All the while we just see the spiral of destruction called healthcare in action.

Waiting anxiously for relief by the mg. the bitter taste of dependence sends anxiety flowing through your body like an electric charge. Heightened emotions snap at unnoticeable normalities. Criticism runs like a “Ticker Tape” across the stock exchange billboard. Fear runs like ice water to you stomach and the temporary reality of needing something physically entrenches you mentally. How? Why? When will it end;when you’re desperate and all you’ve lived for is gone. When the dealer no longer will see you and the middleman can’t be your “Good Neighbor”.

There are limits to what a Dr. Can do for you. A Pharmacy can’t supply you without a pass from the Dr. Eventually you’re on your own to figure out how to “Fix” yourself. Chronic pain, anxiety, depression are slippery slopes. Real conditions with real consequences. The cure can kill you. At the very least they can send you on a path of destruction that will leave you sitting in places and situations you only read in books or saw on TV. I promise you the dealer and the middleman won’t be there to help you; they won’t even acknowledge you in books or on TV.

Waiting desperately for anything to take away the pain, the fear, the anxiety. Hiding in places you know aren’t safe. Meeting people you know benefit from your pain and smiling. Leaving embarrassment behind for desire and disfunction. Putting all you cared for, loved, and respected in a box with the memories and fears. Now you’ve sealed your fate.

Now years have past. Family and friends have faded to memories and obstacles. You have no one to tell. No one to call. No one to help. The people you reach out to have one hand in yours and the other in your pain. There’s nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You look to God and feel the judgement. You look to family and feel the shame. You see friends and feel the distrust. You’re lucky; because you still feel and this is the point of no return.

From here you either move to death or move to life. This middle ground isn’t bottom for you. You can continue down further along the road to destruction or turn up hill towards healing. From here it’s easy. Because every step closer to destruction leaves you numb. You throw off your humanity and strip yourself of dignity all in the name of addiction. Your not physically dead, your emotionally dead. And for many this is the point of no return

For the lucky it’s an awakening. They cling to their humanity and grasp what dignity they have left and seek help along the way. They Find those people who won’t let them fall, who won’t give up. Then step by step they unravel the mystery of addiction. The complex understanding that drugs weren’t the problem. Life, chance, and a system that doesn’t understand it’s own definition propelled them towards a dysfunctional existence where there were no coherent clues. Just some entrepreneurial medicine men perpetuating pills to find a cure for, and you were in the control group that didn’t get the placebo.