National Wild Life Refuge, Lake Mary Pathway
“The trouble with drug addiction is that it really isn’t about the drugs, no matter how much most people seem to believe that. Drug addiction is a means to an end. It begins usually as a way to try something new, to try and get high, to try and transport yourself somewhere else, to try and just feel better for a minute.
Most drug use is self medication for the things that people either can’t or won’t cope with in real life. The root of most of all that? Mental health conditions, the huge piece of this issue that we find ourselves ignoring all too often every time drugs are involved.” –DeBie Hive Blog
I am truly appalled when people insist on imposing their ideology on the lives of others, BUT…
In the spirit of quietness and self-reflection I have deleted most of the following blog post. I don’t obsess over, or even particularly like, Russell Brand as a comedian or an actor. Nevertheless, his piece in The Guardian, which I have linked below, brought me to tears. I think it is an adequate side note to the Philip Seymour Hoffman discussion, which has filled news feeds since his death.
“Because, even now, the condition persists. Drugs and alcohol are not my problem, reality is my problem, drugs and alcohol are my solution.
If this seems odd to you it is because you are not an alcoholic or a drug addict. You are likely one of the 90% of people who can drink and use drugs safely. I have friends who can smoke weed, swill gin, even do crack and then merrily get on with their lives. For me, this is not an option. I will relinquish all else to ride that buzz to oblivion. Even if it began as a timid glass of chardonnay on a ponce’s yacht, it would end with me necking the bottle, swimming to shore and sprinting to Bethnal Green in search of a crack house. I look to drugs and booze to fill up a hole in me; unchecked, the call of the wild is too strong. I still survey streets for signs of the subterranean escapes that used to provide my sanctuary. I still eye the shuffling subclass of junkies and dealers, invisibly gliding between doorways through the gutters. I see that dereliction can survive in opulence; the abundantly wealthy with destitution in their stare.”
-Russell Brand: My Life Without Drugs
Note: I know his article is a bit dated, but still seemed to fit.