A Must Read: “We Don’t Start With Needles in Our Arms”

I came across this post on the blog Renegade Mothering yesterday and had to share it with you:

We Don’t Start With Needles in Our Arms

Here’s one part at the beginning of the post to give you an idea of what’s to come:

Sometimes, when a famous, brilliant actor dies with a needle in his arm, I read the comments from America and I can’t take it. There’s so much ignorance, so much blind condescension based on NOTHING. NOTHING. Opinion. Observation from afar. Some article you read somewhere. An addict you “know.” A drunk you worked with.

The comment that stuck with me like a knife in my brain is this one: “Yeah, addiction isn’t a choice, but shoving a needle in your arm sure as hell is.”

It’s as if people think we start with a needle in our arm. Yeah. Newsflash. WE DON’T.

Alcoholism and addiction are progressive diseases. THEY GET WORSE OVER TIME. We don’t start with a damn needle in our arm. We start drinking beer with friends in high school. We start like you did.

What I loved about this, and think you will too, is the direct, simple, and passionate puncturing of all the myths we deplore about addiction.

But she also goes even further, giving us a deep insight into how addiction works and why it’s so difficult to treat:

By the time I realized I was in trouble, I couldn’t stop.

By the time I realized I couldn’t stop, I COULDN’T STOP.

And that, my friends, is the piece you’re missing: By the time we realize we’re dying, we’re dying. By the time we begin to suspect a problem, we are in the grip of a deadly disease, a disease that lives in the body and the mind. The body demands more – aches and screams and begs for more; the mind says “You’ll die if you don’t have more. It will be okay this time. Just one more time, Janelle.”

It’s not rational. It doesn’t weigh options. It doesn’t think about kids or home or acting careers or any other fucking thing. It thinks about itself. It tells me “You’re fine, Janelle. One drink won’t hurt.”

How do you change a mind with an insane mind? Tell me, how do you? How do you alter the thoughts of a brain when it’s the brain making the thoughts?

Do you see the problem, folks? There’s where the element of choice gets really, really sticky. MY BRAIN IS MAKING THE CHOICES AND MY BRAIN IS THE PROBLEM. You’re telling me to “choose” different behavior when my brain is the thing that’s hardwired to choose more alcohol.

She doesn’t leave us there, with this sense of hopelessness, because she eventually was able to recover from this sickness, and she tells us how she did it.

I highly recommend you reading the rest of this deeply candid and insightful post on addiction.

And if you are a mother, or thinking about becoming a mother, or simply want to know what it’s like to be a mother, you might want to take a look at her blog on Renegade Mothering.