"I'm a functioning alcoholic", the person said. Except that it was all too obvious to all the other people in the room, that that they were anything but functioning.
How deluded can addiction make a person?
Addiction deludes, lies, deceives, makes false promises. Addiction lives in the past. Addiction is the addict's very best friend in the whole world and will never let them down. Not like real life friends do. Not like family does.
No, addiction will never let the addict down, but it will mean that the addict will let other people down - continually.
Not really the addict's fault though is it? There's always a good reason. There's always something or someone else to blame. "Not my fault guv! It my dad's fault, my mum, a teacher, the illness, my partner, my boss, the injury, the job, the loss..."The list is endless.
Or..."didn't you know I've got a disease?" Ah yes, a disease. Well, if the addict didn't start off with a disease, they certainly could end up with one.
An addict is in a trance state of high emotion. They are myopic. They can see nothing else and hear nothing else, other than their very best friend whispering in their ear, "It's okay, everything will be okay. As long as you keep me as your very best friend and don't do anything those other friends say."
Someone was about to have another glass of wine. They have a long term alcohol problem. As they lifted the glass, I asked what they were hoping to find at the bottom of it. "My mother's love." "Well you're not going to find it then are you? Not now, not in future." It wasn't the first time I had heard those particular words from someone with an alcohol problem either.
I believe that every addict is looking for a feeling that they either once experienced or a feeling that they wanted to experience, but didn't. I call it Chasing Rainbows behaviour.
I wrote a poem about it five years ago.
Chasing Rainbows
Let us picture a rainbow.
It could be a memory of a real experience or a figment of the imagination.
We become lost in wonder at the rainbow’s form and the spectrum of rich colours in a changing sky.
We are momentarily entranced and we marvel at the rainbow’s natural beauty and its transient nature.
Our eyes wander to where the end of it disappears...
The image fades.
That was a moment of innocent wonder and curiosity. For a few precious seconds the intrusion of our everyday activities was excluded.
No harm was done. In fact we may even feel uplifted.
Now, let us imagine another rainbow...
Again, we become entranced by it, but this time we concentrate on where the rainbow ends.
We remember the stories and myths we heard as children. Is there really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
A pot of gold that would provide a resolution to all our problems?
We want it and we want it now!
Leaving common sense and reason behind, we chase the end of the rainbow. Again and again.
We keep trying, but the end is just out of reach and always unobtainable.
We feel disappointed, frustrated and weary. Will we ever reach it?
No.
The pot of gold of resolution is the delusion in the illusion. But we continue to reach for and chase the end of the rainbow,
In fact the more we try, the more we can become deluded.
We can become emotionally and physically unwell.
©RitaLeaman2011
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