Healthy Living: Evidence of addiction in the past tense

Awareness around the addiction epidemic in BC has risen steadily in the decade in which I have been on my personal recovery road: from a self-medicating and anxiety-ridden alcoholic to the still somewhat uncertain, but profoundly healthier person currently occupying a calmer place.

Paradoxically, and tragically, there have been more than 14,000 overdose deaths since BC declared a public health emergency with drug addiction in 2016 and that number is still rising.

There is a disconnect between the awareness campaign around addiction and the increasing number of drug deaths on the streets and in homes. Why is addiction still at epidemic levels even with a growing societal consciousness around the deadly situation?

My theory, which I have heard from others, is that chronic addiction can sometimes be a proportional reaction to a society which, if it was an individual, would be classified as pathologically unwell and even psychopathic. We are a cog in a human-constructed value system, which often rewards narcissists and bully behaviour at the top of the social pyramid.

Of course, as an adult, I am responsible for my actions and make choices which have positive, or very negative effects on everything around me, even if this world can seem like it runs on greed and madness.

When I was drinking nightly to an oblivious state, it was like there was a hole in the middle of my life that I thought I could fill with any immediate pleasure or distraction from a life that was cloaked in terrible loneliness. The truth is, you eventually find out the hole in the centre of everything is a bottomless pit.

There is an emptiness with drugs, alcohol or any seriously self-defeating behaviour that, I think, eventually breeds resentment which evolves into anger. The emptiness cannot be satiated with terminally problematic actions.

In my case, violence was directed inward and manifested as an disturbed self-loathing. The emptiness in the middle of life swallows all your energy and gives nothing but a fleeting sense of euphoria. Substance abuse is a bad deal. There is a pathetic return for the all-encompassing investment in addiction.

At that point the tragic story becomes a deadly loop of toxic cause and effect. Healthy friends will either drift away or you give them a rude push. The more you isolate yourself, the worse the addictive actions become. The loop of addiction has fully taken hold and the catastrophic cause and effect is almost impossible to stop.

To exit the often fatal addiction loop is not a solitary act. Psychiatrists, counsellors, friends and group meetings such as cognitive behavioural therapy-based SMART meetings, or Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous, play the essential role of community; the literal and metaphorical hands that pull from the toxic spiral.

The reward is an opportunity for an authentic life with love and loss, and ups and downs ready to be met with clarity and newfound strength.

Today I am drug and alcohol free, and the emptiness of addiction is happily absent. At 55, I am the evidence that anyone can experience a full life restart in the bright light of clarity and health. 

Robert Skender is a qathet region freelance writer and health commentator.

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