A Distorted Reality: Understanding Addiction

“A distorted reality is now a necessity to be free”

- Elliott Smith

In Sam Quinones’ recent book Dream Land about the opiate epidemic in America he touches on this idea that heroin turns individuals into a hyper-consumer. This is because, once you become addicted, your only focus is on consuming the drug and getting money to purchase it. The addict has gone beyond the average consumer, who spreads their habit amongst many different items or objects of desire. The addict is single minded and driven beyond a mere need to consume. Maintaining their reliance on the drug becomes the very single minded essence of their existence.

So why does an addicts life become like this? It may seem obvious on the surface and the average person on the street may well say “Well it’s because they come from a poor, deprived background. They haven’t known anything else apart from poverty and misery.” Yet as Sam points out in his book, this simply isn’t true in the case of the American opiate epidemic where a lot of white, middle class, affluent communities are becoming and have become hooked on heroin. Mostly as a result of an initial addiction to pain pills becoming too expensive to maintain so they end up switching to a cheaper, more effective drug that is abundantly available: heroin.

Heroin is an escape from misery. Well, that is the illusion it sells. The truth is somewhat different. But, initially, it works very well as a temporary relief mechanism from whatever difficult situation you find in life. Yes, a lot of heroin addicts are from poor, deprived backgrounds and areas but there are also a lot of affluent, seemingly comfortable middle class people who succumb to its grip. This is because the roots of addiction can stem from emotional trauma, often experienced in very early childhood. This trauma can take many forms, and in those with a genetic predisposition to addiction, it can plant a seed that develops into the chaos of the drug using lifestyle in adolescence or adulthood.

I use the word ‘seemingly’ there because, ultimately, addiction is no respecter of class or status. You can appear on the surface to have everything: a loving family, a good job, a home, a car. Symbols of middle class success. But if there is an emptiness that gnaws away at the centre of your being then addiction can attempt to fill the hole. Addiction does not care who you are or where you come from. It is there to try and control you and pull your strings. It is up to you how far or how deep you let it take you. Also, I have met many addicts who have experienced no emotional trauma, physical abuse or difficult upbringing but they all shared a common theme: an absence of emotional contact or hands on parenting while growing up. This is crucial. We all need love, whether we think we do or not. This is especially important when it comes to a child’s development. Without love and contact, a child grows up emotionally stunted, confused and disorientated by adult life. Often, they will not know how to handle their emotional responses - they become distorted. Pain dissolves into anger, frustration, rage and other extreme responses to difficult life situations. It takes intervention, learning and gentle coaxing to attempt to repair this damage. Often, it cannot be completely repaired, only managed - much like addiction itself. Those who follow a 12 step recovery programme will know that a central tenet of their philosophy is that active addiction can be arrested and transformed into recovery but the addict remains an addict for life, managing their recovery on a daily basis using spiritual tools of the programme to stay clean.

So, again, we go back to the central question: why do addicts become addicts? Why does heroin take such a grip? This is a simple question with a complex answer. There is no one size fits all response that would suffice. However, as I have outlined above, the common theme is a need to escape, to rise above earthly problems, to provide a temporary relief. For some, addiction is also a romantic notion. Some will look on history’s great artists, musicians, writers and philosophers and seen that they were copious consumers of narcotics; they then elevate this use into a spiritual realm, believing that they were carving their own, distorted reality out of a necessity to be and feel free in the material world. The only problem with this notion is it conveniently neglects to consider the consequences of addiction and the effects on not only the life of the addict but those who love and surround them. Addiction unravels lives, pulls families and relationships apart and causes isolation and misery. The tragic irony is that by attempting to escape misery, neglect or trauma in the first place, the addict actually ends up creating more and more misery, neglect and trauma through the consequences of their addicted lifestyle.

Addiction is an insatiable need or lust. Gabor Mate likens it to the Buddhist idea of living in the realm of hungry ghosts. These beings eat and eat and eat but they are never satisfied because, being non corporeal they cannot properly consume food but they are constantly driven to attempt to feel satisfied. This mirrors a lot of western society you could argue. We are compelled by a need to consume, yet advertising and marketing promotes the idea that we can never be satisfied because there is always something better to purchase that can improve our lives or our social status. When the very nature of our being is exposed as inadequate on a relentless, daily basis then it is not hard to see why addiction is so prevalent in our society.