Intoxication Interlude

We are talking about intoxication as anything that distracts us from what is.

I am getting a little tired of the word.

I am writing about my own experience with it over the years and the things I used and use to avoid dealing with the noise in my own head. That’s it.

I don’t think I take a hard line with any of this. Most everyone I know and work with engages in some kind of intoxication, whether it’s alcohol or weed or something else. I take a hard line with myself because I have learned how easily I become attached to things. I don’t want to die having never lived in reality as much as I am able to as a human.

None of this comes from a place of morals.

I really don’t have an issue with others choosing intoxication, especially when it isn’t bringing any serious consequences their way. I definitely don’t take an issue with it when it isn’t my business. Which is most of the time. I do hate to see anyone limiting their life by not dealing with the root causes of things.  I hate to see anyone medicating symptoms while the disease eats away at their life. I am not always able to do anything about it though.

I have a unique job. People come to me seeking something better for themselves. It is exciting when I someone who really wants to sweep away the layers of delusion and intoxication and take a good hard look at their life. Not everyone is seeking this though. Some people just want to figure out what’s not working and move on, and that’s cool. They want to put a bucket under the leaky pipe rather than spend their time and money and energy to replace everything that has rusted away, and that’s cool.

I get it.

Sometimes, simply not-destructive is a great improvement in one’s quality of life. That’s worth shooting for.

I’ve spent a great deal of my life watching intoxications of one kind or another take people’s time and energy and spirit, and sometimes their lives. I’ve watched intoxications take the most capable and charismatic people I’ve ever met and turn them into incapable, toxic creatures. I’ve watched intoxications take people’s time and money and families and careers. I’ve watched kind people become cruel and gentle people become violent. I have rarely watched intoxications do much good for people.

I am not perfect. I do not think I ever claim to be. As you’ll see in the days to come, there are still ways I intoxicate myself. There are still things I use to avoid reality and to hide my face from difficult things. Sometimes there are things in front of me that I just don’t have the heart to deal with right then. I just try to keep my intoxications as neutral as possible these days. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail.