Comment:

     Charlie, I’ve just recently started reading your blog, and I have to say, if this isn’t one of the most important blogsites on the internet, I don’t know what is!! I am so glad you have the freedom to take the gloves off here, and say things that have previously been unaddressed in ‘recovery circles’, and, for a variety of other unacceptable reasons, are left unresolved. I am committed to doing whatever it takes to invite those who need it most, to come and benefit from your powerful and compelling story, and your accompanying recovery dialogue.

     Granted, this is pretty graphic and brutal stuff, but you know what? It’s exactly what some of us need to escape the grasp of addiction. I don’t think one of us ever thought about the consequences of our behaviors. If we did, it was never at this level. If this information doesn’t shake us, rock our world, and motivate one so affected to change, or at least to seek out the resources for treatment, you might be dealing with something far deeper, like ASPD.


     Thank you Sir, for all you continue do !! And a Very Peace-filled Christmas to you & yours’.

Response:

     Charrah, God bless you. I really can’t tell you how much this means to me. Right before you wrote and submitted this, I got panned by someone else on some old post, so perfect timing 😉     And what you say about having the freedom to take the gloves off is, first of all, beautifully said, but it is also reflective of a much larger issue facing us all. How fortunate we are to have this freedom, a necessary freedom, yet one that many seem all too willing to cede, though I cannot for the life of me explain why.

     Just imagine a parent coming home to find the lifeless body of their son or daughter. Imagine the little angel that you raised from birth has stopped breathing permanently. Imagine losing the only thing on Earth that you cannot fathom losing because he or she is planted so deep in your heart…

     When I look at videos or pics of my children, the feelings I have are so profound and gut-wrenching… and this is why I do not sugar coat addiction here. If you want to lie to yourself or be lied to, just read anything else or go listen to an addict spewing their myriad of excuses for why they use, why it’s not their fault because it’s a disease blah, blah, blah, blah… all complete bullshit.

     Quite frankly, the new-age attitude towards addiction is sin. How on Earth do these people think it’s appropriate to excuse, justify, rationalize and even victimize addiction? Obviously, this ever-expanding group of assholes do not have children of their own, like the imbecile I heard on the radio who asserted that it was appropriate for Sesame Street to do a bit about a puppet’s mother going to rehab. She said that media, schools and government should be deciding what children are exposed to should decide how parents must raise their own children. Are you fucking serious? A caller asked her if she had children and of course she said no. Typical for a childless liberal to think they know what’s best for everybody else. Typical for a childless liberal to smugly tell everybody else what they should think, say and do. Typical for a childless, Godless liberal to insult, smear, attack and isolate anyone who disagrees with them, branding them as bigots, racists, facists or Nazi’s.

     Ironically, this is exactly what the Nazis actually did. This is precisely what fascism is. How ironic that the modern-day left has co-opted an anti-fascist platform to cleverly hide the fact that they are, in fact, fascists. They demand all who disagree must conform, lest they be attacked viciously. It’s almost not believable but I’ve actually read articles by liberal communists that white, male, cisgendered heterosexuals should just be executed. So does that include my 7 year-old son as well? Trust me, if I am out and about and a gang of liberal antifa thugs try to attack me and my children just because there is an American flag on my t-shirt or something, they will all end up hemorrhaging in the intensive care unit. Of course that won’t happen because they are the biggest bunch of pussies the world has ever seen.

     At any rate, this is why people who do not have children are particularly clueless when it comes to addiction. What we do to our parents is absolutely outrageous and should never be excused. There is nothing to blame except ourselves. There is no disease of addiction. Just the notion that we are now to compare addiction to other terminal diseases beyond our control such as juvenile leukemia is truly beyond the pale. Even more mind-blowing is the fact that addiction is so clearly self-inflicted, that we consciously mutate ourselves into drug addicts and risk death all because we are too selfish and too cowardly to be a human being like everybody else who does not feel good 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are too cowardly to live life on life’s terms, to face reality, to grow up and to get better.

     I see billboards now with the “Addiction is not a choice! No one wants to be an addict!” propaganda and it is all false advertising and lies from pharmaceutical marketers and big business recovery who have clearly lobbied the APA and the government. The truth? It is all bullshit. Not a single soul on the Earth has ever been born a drug addict or an alcoholic. Becoming an addict requires repeated and sustained effort. It requires tremendous selfishness and preoccupation with oneself. And sorry to disappoint you, but it also requires a love affair with drugs. Trust me, addicts and alcoholics LOVE drugs and alcohol with all of their hearts.

     Addiction is 100% a choice. The damage we do to our willpower from using so much and from being a total pussy is a temporary condition. And even then, none of us actually loses choice altogether. If so, nobody would ever get better! When I finally dragged myself into detox and then went up North to take Steps, what was that? Yup, a choice. That was 15 years ago and do I hold on by a thread? Nope. Not at all. I have zero urge to self-destruct. I never think about heroin or coke or oxycontin or alcohol or weed or anything else. In fact, all of it just disgusts me. I find substances repulsive and immature, whether you’re an addict or not. It is all just spiritual poison designed to push us away from God.

    So listen: It is a choice to mutate oneself into a piece of shit drug addict or alcoholic and it is a choice NOT to get better, especially when there is a solution.

    Please.

    Sugar-coating addiction and alcoholism doesn’t help anyone.

     My incredible girlfriend often texts me various forms of inspiration to get me to write. One of her favorite sources is the addict’s diary (which is, to put it lightly, brutal), as she has a plethora of asinine FB posts at her fingertips. I’m not sure if it’s the poor quality of the writing, the infantile attention-seeking or the new-age idiocy, but regardless, I used to act like a loud, cocky, smug, liberal intellectual and it is not only a mental disorder but it is truly nauseating. Getting off on attention and self-seeking this way is exactly the sort of hubris that brings addicts down.