“A thousand moments I had taken for granted, mostly because I assumed there would be a thousand more.” - Morgan Matson
I’m honestly just so sick of watching good people die. I know I’m not the only one and this is by no means a way of trying to gain attention or pity for the amount of deaths I have experienced in my life. Rather, I’m just tired of being silent about real life things that I stay silent about out of fear that I’m going to say the wrong thing or strike the wrong cord in one of my readers. At this point I don’t care though. I know as long as I attempt to come from a loving place, there’s nothing I can say that is “wrong” or “right,” all I can hope for is that those of you who are meant to read my words and gain a message from it are absorbing the ideas and thoughts my brain has and you can understand my perspective of the world and it’s people and put it in your own words from where your sitting, from your perspective. Shoot, maybe one day we’ll share some space and discuss our perspectives of the world together but for now, keep an open mind and pick up what resonates with you and let go of what doesn’t 🤷🏻♀️
Yesterday I got news that a good friend passed away to a higher dimension. I can’t say for sure what the cause of death was but I know he struggled with addiction and was working hard towards his recovery. This is the 16th or 17th person (too mentally exhausted to count) who has touched my life and heart on some level that has died as a result of a drug. Never did I think this would be something I would experience in my life, and definitely not over a handful of times. I had never envisioned that drugs would become a major part of the lives of those around me who I grew up with and I damn sure didnt expect it to have such an impact on MY own life.
I remember the first time I ever got news that someone I loved passed away unexpectedly. It was a close family friend who I had known for a very short period of time, but he had a big enough impact that it scarred me for every death I experienced in my life after his. I didn’t want to believe it, I went through stages of being angry, then sad, then confused and lost, to coming to terms with it on a level that made me feel crazy.
With every transcendence of yet another beautiful, soulful, light human being that gave their life in exchange to feel something greater than themselves through ingesting a chemical substance, my desire to understand addiction and to see past the character of drugs has only grown stronger. I find greater meaning in death and understand that the lives that most feel have been “taken from us too soon” have really, from my system of beliefs, fulfilled their life’s purpose and are now needed in a higher dimension. We will meet again one day, and I find peace and great solitude in knowing we will connect on some greater level through time and space. I find peace in knowing that the bodies that have died, have also released the souls I have learned to love, to be in spirit around me and those they have connected with throughout their physical lives. I’ve always wondered if the reason we are all here is to connect to higher dimensions, and if we do this through connecting with the soul of those who have passed on. Maybe that’s our mission here and maybe those who have passed on have fulfilled their purpose in that sense and now are needed for a new mission, whatever that may be.
Having these belief systems though still leave me feeling empty and in disbelief at times though, especially in these kinds of situations. We are so conditioned to take things for physical value, sometimes it’s hard to believe in certain things without physical evidence. Mental and spiritual proof take a little longer to trust from where I’m standing.
Addiction is something I have studied for years and still, there are so many questions left unanswered.
What are we suppose to do for the people we love who are addicted? Is there anything we can do? It’s hard to believe that someone “fulfilled their life’s” purpose when they overdose on a drug that was cut with a more potent drug, at such a young age. In the physical sense, it just looks like they fucked up or their dealer fucked up and murdered them but is it really that black and white? Why do we judge addicts so hard instead of loving them harder? Have you ever wondered if maybe everyone has an addiction of some sort and that’s why no one understands it fully? That maybe our addictions are a result of a lack of understanding of the brain and maybe it is something that is inside all of us? How important is it for someone to focus on their own problems instead of trying to solve others problems for them? Why do we even call it addiction? In what ways does someone else’s addiction become our problem?
Addiction should just be labeled CODEPENDENCY because at the root of all addiction, that is the true problem isn’t it? I see it this way, our brains have a Co-dependency on a drug.
Codependency is often described using a couple or two people in a relationship. In the situation of addiction, the relationship is between the brains natural pharmacy and the substance of choice. When the two begin the relationship, there is often a honeymoon phase where one‘s senses almost become heightened and they perform better than normal in their life or their life almost enters a euphoric phase where life appears to be better or greater than what it was before consuming the drug. This happens because our brains have its own natural pharmacy of chemicals known as neurotransmitters.
From experience, most begin consuming drugs in smaller amounts, so when these smaller amounts are mixed with the brains natural pharmacy, we get heightened senses and sensitivity. Obviously the effects and dosing are different for everyone because everyone is born with a different “natural pharmacy.” For example, someone with depression may have lower natural dopamine levels so their tolerance of a drug like say, morphine or heroin, could be stronger than someone who does not have depression.
However, everyone who ingests drugs experiences this kind of science within their bodies. Over time, depending on use and dosage, the brains pharmacy learns to adapt to these chemical substances and lessens its own production and becomes codependent on the drugs chemicals to fulfill its needs. The brains pharmacy and these chemical substances become the true definition of a codependent relationship; “an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individuals ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship..,” with drugs. At this point, one is out of the honeymoon phase and can no longer maintain a healthy relationship with drugs and alcohol.
Have you ever been in a codependent relationship? Maybe you’ve even loved or love someone who struggles with addiction and you find yourself so bothered by their behavior that you yell at them, or give them ultimatums or try and tell them what they should or shouldn’t be doing with their life. Have you ever seen the blood shot, open mouthed stare someone whose high has on their face and it’s made you so angry, you criticized them for even letting themselves get that way? Have you ever seen this same face and chose not to react and instead you see their pain and you love them despite them not having the strength or control to love themselves in a healthy way? Have you ever got into a fight with this loved one and said something mean to them out of anger because their substance abuse kills you inside just to regret your anger filled words once the sadness starts sleeping through? Knowing that any day could be their last day, and could be the last day you ever feel them in your physical life again? But then their stumbling in your house past midnight with excuse after excuse and you just can’t take it anymore? Or maybe they’re stealing from you and lying to your face. How much more of that are you going to put up with? How do you even know when you should give up on someone whose struggling with addiction? Do we even give up? What if we did? What if we didn’t? AA and Al-Anon have taught me that I can’t fix my loved ones problems with addiction, for the same reasons they couldn’t attempt to fix mine. Doing so will only lead me you to your own addictive behavior, more formally labeled as Codependency disorder. I agree with this and have experienced this in my own life with several of my loved ones.
So if we can’t save them, does that mean we should just turn a blind eye and let them “hit rock bottom”? Do we make them feel bad for not being able to control something they must accept they have no control over? Do we just push them to the side and pretend like drugs, alcohol, mental illness and wellness aren’t a normal part of everyday life? Do we force them to sober up and go to rehab because that’s what we selfishly feel would benefit our lives even if they don’t feel ready for it? Do we accept the problem in order for the problem to be transcended? Do we label them junkies and just let them all die? Do we see addiction as a problem or a portal for world change? Do we shame addicts for coming home high or drunk instead of being grateful they came home at all and loving them for the time they are with us despite the rest of the noise in their life and in yours? Do we try to play judge, jury, and crystal ball and pretend we can predict where their addiction will take them just because we hear that drugs only take you to three places: the hospital, prison or death? Or do we dig deeper and discover that these beliefs we are being conditioned to believe about drug use are just thoughts from those who have endured the darker sides of addiction and maybe we must learn to see a lighter, more acceptable side to drugs and their place in the world?
These are questions that go through my mind on a daily basis. Often times I notice people see drugs and symptoms more than they do humanity and love. Our world has been conditioned to live on a physical level but addiction is bringing a large portion of the population closer to the spiritual level of humanity. As heartbreaking as it is at times, it is truly breathtaking to see how addiction is changing the world for the better. It’s very hard to see this, so if you’re not there yet, I understand. I still have moments where the line is fuzzy too. But ultimately addiction is bringing the world back to love. To see and love someone past their codependency with drugs and the symptoms they create in a person, you connect to the true soul of another. Once you become aware of this soul, once you’re connect, you can choose to love someone’s soul unconditionally to bring out the souls light and see past the behavior and symptoms.
So although, I believe the saying that “you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” I believe more that everyone wants to be saved, but not everyone realizes the life saver is love. A loved one can steal objects with man-made material value from you, they can steal green paper we use as currency from you, their mouth and chemically altered brain can spit out unnecessary and poorly expressed words and emotions but ultimately, none of that equals the price of unconditional love. Love is infinite and we all have an unlimited supply within each of us. It is ours to give away to those who need it most in life, including ourselves. In any given moment we can choose love or we can choose fear.
I remember my loved one stole from me this one time and I remember saying some really awful things to him. He stole a 60” inch TV right out of my moms living room and sold it for drugs for him and a friend. I also remember this one time where I was short on rent and for three days it felt like I was gonna die. My anxiety was so high. I ended up having to sell some things I really didn’t want to sell, but the thought of losing my shelter really scared the hell out of me that I was willing to lose some material valued objects to survive what “felt like death”. Maybe you don’t see the similarities in these stories but my loved one basically took a few sheets of metal and plastic and bartered it with someone to stock his pharmacy to avoid deficiency. If I can get passed the part where my loved one has this label of addiction, and get past the awful physical symptoms that I can clearly visually see, then I can connect that, although it’s painful and a bit maddening to see someone I love so deeply put themselves in harms way and betray me on a physical level, they are managing something much greater than we can even begin to understand with the visual eye. Addiction can be so ugly to the human eye, that most often, many of us have a hard time seeing past the physical part of addiction.
What truly lies beneath physical addiction is a soul, trying to survive in a world we have not been conditioned or taught to live in. These are not excuses for addictive behavior by no means, this is the reality we live in. Nobody is just a body and face. We are souls, covered in conditioned matter, more intricate than any other living thing on the planet.
With my loved ones, I choose to look past addictions ugliness. I choose to look past the symptoms, and the behaviors, and stigmas, and the judgments and shame. I choose to love the the souls that exist deep inside my loved ones. And despite their behaviors, I choose to give them the space required to reveal their true souls to me instead of projecting my image of who their suppose to be onto them. I choose to forgive those who feel the need to steal my material objects to survive because I know how it feels to be desperate in feeling anything but anxiety, depression and/or pain. I know what it’s like to feel like there is something much greater in this world that I am not witnessing with just two of my eyes. I know what’s it’s like to feel the joy a chemical substance can bring by opening you up to parts of life and yourself you thought you’d never experience just to have it turn it’s back on you. I know what it’s like to watch a loved one kill themselves and shame themselves over something they can’t control.
But most of all, I know what it’s like to be codependent; with humans, with drugs, with alcohol, with food, with sex, with social media, with money, with family, with friends, and with lovers. I am no different than you, and you are no different than me. We all have been codependent at least once in our lives, haven’t we? We’ve all experienced at least one relationship that became unhealthy and supportive of bad habits or ideas about ourselves.
Because of this, I vow to live my life from love no matter how someone stocks their pharmacy’s shelves. Should you too? After all, you never know when it’ll be the last time you get to love that person. So love them every moment like it’s the last moment, no matter the circumstances or physical situation in your eyes. Use your energetic body and fight past the feeling of anger because those who struggle the most, deserve to feel love too. And YOU, above all else, deserve to feel love instead of anger. Their problem is not yours, so don’t let them stealing a couple sheets of metal and plastic be the reason you take yourself away from love. Keep loving, see past these poor choices and big mistakes. Reveal the SOUL and LOVE HARD. Continue to fill yourself and others up with love and love will ALWAYS win.
“Inside the chaos, build a temple of love.” - Rune Lazuli
🧠 The Cope Dealer
Comentarios