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Make It Your Habit

A Brief Explanation

Months ago when I started blogging in October of 2025 my first post was the one linked above, “Swallowing Spirits & Spitting Out Demons” which I wrote as part of an assignment for one of my college courses. In it I described a blackout drunken incident involving my mother that permanently fractured our relationship. For some much needed background on this post, I feel it would be in the best interest of anyone investing their time into reading this post to go check it out.

If you would, please consider following me on substack and becoming a subscriber there to check out an up-to-date archive of my work, it would really mean the world to me! This isn’t a follow up or any kind of meaningful commentary that neatly resolves any of the conflict that my actions produced from that night, but it does give context here for what I want to say. For those who have been keeping up with my posts you’ll know that I occasionally mention the loss of my older sister Molly and how that relationship was impacted by my drinking and sometimes even my sober actions before and after the fact.

Vulnerability Versus Shock Value

I struggle with whether or not I should mention the specifics of what I have done in the past because some of those things are quite ugly and shocking. It’s tempting to take the plunge and monetize my pain for the clicks and the views but somehow a part of me doubts it would go over well for me if any of my readers were made aware of the true extent of my past behavior. I’ve debated for sometime now if I should lock it behind a paywall where I could both get some relief while having some degree of confidence that it would never be seen or that anyone who did manage to see it wouldn’t care enough for it to really matter, even if it was “That Bad”. So for those of you who may have some insight, I encourage you to leave a comment or some kind of feedback as to what you think would be the healthiest and least destructive thing for someone in my shoes to do at this juncture.

Where is the line drawn between “Brave and Authentic” versus “Shocking And Unsettling Confession”? I do believe there’s a difference. I assume many people who read my blogs come for personal, vulnerable experiences, insights, information on drug addiction and commentary on topics like music and entertainment too from time to time. My hope is that anything I talk about in regards to addiction and mental health is educational and healing above all else. And that’s why I struggle the way that I do when it comes to confessing my past to my audience; I hope that the reality of everything I have done and been involved with could have therepeutic value for others out there and maybe I could be helpful in that way, in case somebody out there needs to be able to read it and say “Wow that’s pretty awful, I did something similar so now I don’t have to feel alone or uniquely bad anymore!”.

What Is Drug Addiction At Its Core?

Drug addiction and alcoholism are very serious conditions of the mind, body and spirit. I personally believe that people who are affected by it have lost the ability to cope and they seek relief that starts out as an escape which eventually turns into a trap. They are in pain and at war with their own brains and the way their brains respond to the introduction of substances is unusually destructive, to the point where reward centers get rewired and completely altered to depend on external vices for survival and a modicum of pleasure and joy. In many cases they want to stop but are rendered powerless over use. Over time, complete demoralization and dereliction overtake them as they adjust to simply existing as shallow husks, wishing they could die because they see no way out of their predicament. I became a full blown drug addict just months after the incident with my mom and looking back I realize that I traumatized myself so badly that I did not know how to emotionally evolve past it. To this day it has left its marks on me and I struggle to move past it in any kind of meaningful way. Even after years of therapy, A.A and N.A meetings and many conversations with supportive family members. Perhaps one day I will get brave and make a tell-all post about how I completely shit the goddamn bed and nearly ruined my life out of grief and sorrow. But that won’t be this post.

Consequences & Grief

An addict’s least favorite word is “consequences”. The recognition and realization that our actions have ramifications that can sometimes be very, very harsh and painful. Sometimes grief makes friends with consequences and they get together and fuck you in the ass with a lead pipe and a sandpaper condom. I happen to be one such person who experienced that and I feel bad for anybody who had to experience that as well. It’s an extremely brutal experience that completely changes the way that you look at other people and even life itself. Compassionate people from all walks of life go to school to become therapists so they can help people like us learn to live with the things we cannot change, as we spend our lives in and out of recovery programs trying to move past the insanity of the messes we created, back when we lost our minds and tried to take the whole world with us as we fell. I have nights sometimes when I can’t sleep and I cry as I think about how I’m missing out on my sister’s life. My big sister who disowned me and cut me out completely. Deserved or undeserved, it hurts all of the same. There’s resentment over it, there’s remorse and shame I cannot possibly describe. I can go through periods of time when I don’t think about it at all, but one of the most frustrating things about twelve step programs like A.A is that they put a focus on repairing the past, which I try as hard as I can to forget. What is the use of revisiting the past when you can’t even try to repair the harm you’ve done? You are just expected to open up an old wound over and over again and that only ensures it will never heal. That’s why I have started to move more towards alternatives like “Refuge Recovery” or “Smart Recovery”, programs which don’t dig up old corpses for fun and exclusively focus on the issue itself.

My Vision For The Future

I put such an emphasis on continuing my education because I want to take an approach to recovery that doesn’t harm the person who is trying to recover. I see the positive sides of A.A like making amends when you screw up and seeing your part in a conflict. Personally, most of the A.A and N.A programs never truly resonated with me but I did like alot of the people I met there, I just never felt like the program worked for me as effectively as it has for so many of them. My dream is to move to The Carolinas (I’m thinking South Carolina specifically) and buy a house out there where I can hold weekly meetings and serve food, like one of my old friends in Recovery used to do. I would be a licensed drug and alcohol counselor and see patients with addiction issues. Before I can move I need to earn enough college credits and complete enough of an education so that I can legally practice as a licensed professional down south. If you liked anything I shared in this post and want to see more, please leave a comment, share and like!

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