mondane
I had often mused on the nature of addiction. What is it, exactly, to be “addicted”? Are the parameters self defined, and if so, how can consensus be reached to define the essence of “addiction”? Was it measured and defined only by its effects? If so, how could one theorise on consequences? Is a man who mainlines heroin, but is nice to his wife and children more or less an addict than a homeless waster who dabbles in lieu of other, accepted, entertainment? Was there such a thing at all, or was it just a necessary invention of the caustic jealousy of a society to those who had rejected its imposed mores in favour of the individuals own?

Normally, this sort of half arsed speculation idly filled my comedowns, as the strychnine and bicarbonate made the jaw ache, and Screamadelica made the impending sleep seem an even more delicious draught. It made me feel clever: a cheap blanket to cover my insecurity.

But this time I was thinking of, shall we say an acquaintance called Jeremy (I refuse to call any man named Jeremy a friend). I had given Jeremy his first tab of LSD and he had taken to it with a passion I had unanticipated.

Within six months he was living in a tree. To misquote Marwood: His mechanism had fucking gone. He was like those tapes we used to make in the old days: a copy of a copy of a copy of a human. Blurred, fady and distorted. Whatever. His choice.

Now I am old, and my bones feel as brittle as flint and my guts spill like an ugly confession over my cheap jeans. Mostly I can’t sleep and I lie awake in my IKEA bed and construct fantasies based on half imagined fragments of memory. I pluck the glistering shards from the sea of misery which fills my head: a cheap blanket to cover my insecurity, and my failures. And I know the morning will come. The nights pass in restlessness and sighing, and from the sea of my sadness, I cling to my ashamed achievements. And I await morning, and a day at the office.

And that is my dark secret. It is that I have failed. Regardless of the others, I have failed. It is that I have accepted this life. I did not spiral out, instead, like a coward, I hunkered down and “sobered” up and accepted the nature of “addiction” and became “clean”. And every day my sorrow is matched my society’s joy at my conformity. My black socks. My direct debits. My email account. The everyday darkness of the secret failure in me.

Also, I am too scared to piss in a shower.
(sirolimus, Mon 3 Sep 2007, 9:55, Reply)