Disconnected
Distorted Self-Portrait, Ashlie Curtis
It's hard to see light at the end of the tunnel when you haven’t even found the beginning of it. And it's hard to find the beginning when your vision is consumed by methamphetamine addiction. While experiencing active meth addiction, my thought processes were immensely distorted, and lack of sleep and malnutrition—results of using meth—exacerbated the effects. Over time, these effects intensified so much that meth completely consumed my life. My life became completely unmanageable.
It always felt easier to continue getting high because, as an addict, when you finally realize you have a problem, you’ve already lost the connections that could support your recovery. Your entire existence feels like one huge disconnect. You feel disconnected from the people who care about you because you have let them down so many times, and you also feel completely disconnected from yourself and from reality. These voids cause feelings of failure, depression, shame, and guilt, which encourage us to seek out highs that can suppress our feelings until the obsession and compulsion of filling those voids consumes your life. At this point, the only thing that can bring us back is a force outside ourselves. And even if we are lucky enough to find that force, we may not be destined for sobriety. The damage done to an addict’s brain doesn't heal overnight, and the unbearable stress of clearing the wreckage resulting from active addiction causes many to relapse. I cannot describe the hopelessness I felt when I got sober and began to acknowledge the consequences of addiction: legal trouble, dental issues, destroyed and damaged relationships, and many other forms of loss. The worst realization was that total disconnect I felt within myself. I didn't know who I was. Eventually, I realized this disconnect had started during childhood, and I had been trying to mask it my entire life. Meth was just the finish line in that process.
My first experience with meth was typical. I was offered the drug at an unfortunate time when I felt vulnerable, and I told myself, “Why not?” In that moment, it seemed harmless. I didn’t consider the underlying issues in my life related to trauma and mental health that would take over and trick me into seeing drugs as a solution to my problems. In the beginning, using meth makes you feel confident and social. But over time, you become more introverted and detached. Meth affects the brain in a way that causes paranoia and irrational thinking, which keep people hooked. This is what makes meth so difficult to give up.
Even when life felt completely unmanageable, I continued using meth for more than two years. Sometimes I told myself I needed to get help and get away from drugs; usually after being arrested, but the hostile environment in jail does not foster clear and logical thinking. After getting out of jail, I’d go right back to using meth. Without healthy connections and support, I was lost. I was a prisoner in my own mind and I didn’t have the tools or knowledge to free myself. The only thing on my mind was using meth so I could feel somewhat okay.
Sadly, I never truly felt the inner peace I was always seeking until I got sober after being sentenced to drug court in two states for crimes I had committed, which I believe was the universe saving my life. I didn’t want to go to prison for several years, so I abstained from drugs and started chipping away at all the disconnects in my life. I’m not going to say it was easy—it was the most difficult thing I have ever done—and although I have almost two years clean, I still struggle from time to time. The difference is I now have people or organizations that I can turn to and I have several friends in recovery as well. I once heard that connection is the opposite of addiction—the antidote—and I couldn’t agree more. Connectedness, in my opinion, is the ultimate weapon against addiction. Support systems and unconditional positive regard are so paramount to a person’s recovery. Feeling alone or disengaged can be deadly. In a fellowship I attend they say, “an addict alone is in bad company” and there is a reason for this statement. We can't expect someone who has abused their brain and body for so long to immediately begin thinking clearly and making logical decisions. Changing the trajectory of an addict’s life requires community support.