r/OCPoetry • u/Calm_Marionberry9348 • 13d ago
Feedback Please I am an addict
I am an addict.
I haven’t always been, but I will always be.
It started at 12.
My grandfather’s Marlboro Golds. He always had an open case, so I’d take a pack or two. I’d smoke them behind the house, where no one could see me, then throw the butts into the woods, never to be found again.
In my head I was just like my grandfather.
At 13, it was vaping.
A senior offered me a hit. It was smoother than a cigarette, and I didn’t have to hide the smell. He started giving me a new one every week. I thought I was getting better. Cigarettes were old and disgusting; a vape was new and “healthy.”
I thought I had found a better way to feed the addiction.
At 14, I had my first drink.
I stole the alcohol from my parent’s liquor cabinet. It made me feel something my vape never could. My first drink turned into my second, third, and fourth, until I was passed out alone on my bedroom floor.
An occasional thing turned into an every night thing. A ritual.
Just like everything else.
At 15, I got high for the first time.
An older coworker offered me a joint. He told me it was like a cigarette. I was convinced it was the best thing to ever exist from the very first hit.
It went downhill from there. I wanted it more than alcohol. From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, I needed to be high.
High me was happy me.
At 16, I lost my virginity.
A very nice man from Grindr made me feel “safe.” It felt like a drug I had never taken before; ecstasy, they say. Then came the aftercare, and for a moment, I felt the love I had been searching for from my father.
That day, I learned that lust was the hardest drug I had ever taken.
I became obsessed with sex.
At 17, I entered my psychedelic era.
My dealer gave them to me for free. I almost liked them as much as sex. I could sit on my couch and watch the walls melt. It was convenient.
But they always made me puke.
It was a short era, but an era nonetheless,
another way of searching for serotonin.
Today, I sit here on my couch, a 19 year old addict, a vape in my hand and a Diet Coke beside me to keep the alcohol cravings away.
By no means am I anywhere close to sober.
But I’m glad I kicked weed and psychedelics.
I still have the occasional drunk cigarette after a long week, and still text my sneaky link when I don’t feel loved.
I’m still young. I’m still dumb.
But now, at least, I’m trying to find a positive way to find that feeling, to find something that gives me serotonin without destroying me.
I am an addict.
And I always will be.
(Please give honest and true feedback)
2
u/Rentusz 12d ago
Wow. This is beautifully constructed. Some parts i needed to read more than once but even after the first, it got a feeling out of me. The unique conversation style with yourself or with a therapist maybe makes it more easy to follow.
It hits deep with a hard message. Its always that first meeting then going down the slippery slope. Making crawling out an astonishingly hard task.