treating addiction
William C. Moyers is a recovery advocate who for 12 years has been free of crack and alcohol. He was invited to speak at the M.I.T. conference.
In a room full of scientists and addiction researchers obsessed with the intricacies of the human brain, Moyers’ words reminded them that treating addiction might be even more complicated than they thought:
I have an illness with origins in the brain . . . but I also suffered with the other component of this illness.
I was born with what I like to call a hole in my soul.. . .A pain that came from the reality that I just wasn’t good enough.
That I wasn’t deserving enough. That you weren’t paying attention to me all the time. That maybe you didn’t like me enough. The conference room was as quiet as it had been all day.
For us addicts, he continued, recovery is more than just taking a pill or maybe getting a shot.. . .Recovery is also about the spirit, about dealing with that hole in the soul.
Russell Brand on the death of Amy Winehouse —>
All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them.
They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil.
Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pin-striped exec foaming off about his “speed-boat”, there is a toxic aura that prevents connection.
They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anesthetisze the pain of living, to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief”….