one can decide for another whether he or she is addicted. One thing is
sure, though; every single one of us has denied being an addict.
For months, for years, we who now freely admit that we are cocaine addicts
thought that we could control cocaine when in fact it was controlling us.
"I only use on weekends," or
"It hardly ever interferes with work," or
"I can quit, it's only psychologically
addicting, right?" or
"I only snort, I don't base or shoot," or
"It's this relationship that's messing me
up."
Many of us are still perplexed to realize how
long we went on, never getting the same high we got at the beginning, yet
still insisting, and believing -- so distorted was our reality -- that we
were getting from cocaine what actually always eluded us.
We went to any lengths to get away from being
ourselves. The lines got fatter; the grams went faster; the week's stash
was all used up today. We found ourselves scraping envelopes and baggies
with razor blades, scratching the last flakes from the corners of brown
bottles, snorting or smoking any white speck from the floor when we ran
out. We, who prided ourselves on our fine-tuned state of mind! Nothing
mattered more to us than the straw, the pipe, the needle. Even if it made
us feel miserable, we had to have it.
Some of us mixed cocaine with alcohol or other
drugs, and found temporary relief in the change, but in the end it only
compounded our problems. We tried quitting by ourselves, finally, and
sometimes managed to do so for periods of time. After a month we imagined
we were in control. We thought our system was cleaned out and we could get
the old high again, using half as much. This time, we'd be careful not to
go overboard. But we only found ourselves back where we were before, and
worse.
We never left the house without using first. We
didn't make love without using. We didn't talk on the phone without coke.
We couldn't fall asleep, sometimes it seemed we couldn't even breathe
without cocaine. We tried changing jobs, apartments, cities, lovers --
believing that our lives were being screwed up by circumstances, places,
people. Perhaps we saw a cocaine friend die of respiratory arrest, and
still we went on using! But eventually we had to face facts. We had to
admit that cocaine was a serious problem in our lives, that we were
addicts.
Some
of us can answer without hesitation, "I am!" Others aren't so sure.
Cocaine Anonymous believes that no
one can decide for another whether he or she is addicted. One thing is
sure, though; every single one of us has denied being an addict.
For months, for years, we who now freely admit that we are cocaine addicts
thought that we could control cocaine when in fact it was controlling us.
