We battle not with specific drugs, but with compulsivity and mental
and emotional pursuits. Long after a drug has left our system, there
is a trigger switch still present in the mind, the thing that drives all
addictive personalities.
What we truly pursue is the chase; we run after a followup of that
last high, that something special, that anything to help us forget
our pain, life's complexity, our memories, our desires. We seek 'other.'
But it's the idea of the feeling that we cling to, not the reality.
Perception and remembrance distort everything. We want to recapture
obliteration, but memory is imperfect and stilted, as we edit both the
good and the bad in hindsight. The mind can build experiences into
this perfectionistic concept that didn't--and don't--exist, so that we
are eternally 'chasing the dragon.'
Of course, the dragon can be the high of gambling, and knowing this
time will be The Time, or sexual release, since we want to attain that
ultimate combining, or a chemical high, because we 'remember' what
that last high was like, imprinted on the brain's map as it was. All these
things conjure up very specific body memory, but the source is still the
mind, which feeds, powers, and chooses whether or not to respond
to these feelings.
We tend to be dissatisfaction personified, endlessly looking for that
'something' that will fix or satisfy us, whether it be relationship, money,
geography, job, or booze. We attempt the recreation of various systems
and schematics in order to reestablish the place or event that (only in our
mind) is the key to happiness.
We want this thing to free us. To save us. Fix us. Numb us.
Complete us. Sate us.
We are in love with the conceptual, the magical...the unattainable.
And that is the wiring that has to be changed, or ignored.
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