I am sorry...

The worst thing about addiction is ultimately self-absorption. In the case of a damaged soul, the damage, that rupture, the leak in the dam, is the black hole of selfishness. Everything gravitates toward that vortex.

In reflecting back over these past few weeks I've realized that I've left a trail of damage in my relationships. This may just be my perception, still self-centered, narcissistic, dramatic. But, as kind as I may have been toward people, and my general temperament is kind, when it came to relationship and the deep things of being with others, the facade crumbled and I ran, or faked it.

So I feel compelled, when thinking back on my life, to say I'm sorry. I don't see the joy, at least not yet. I am at a stage where I want to look at those I've hurt and apologize. It's quite possible that I am thinking too much of myself and that I really didn't have that much of an impact on others. Perhaps it is vanity again in thinking this much of myself as addicts, even former addicts, are wont to do. Paranoia is the same thing. So full of ourselves, we really do think the world revolves around us, albeit in a negative way, and the feelings of being watched, or hated, or lied to all revolve around this self-absorption.

Vanity leads to the incessant need to apologize to others, to have others tell you that you are ok, to have others tell you positive things about yourself, to filter out all those things that don't have anything to do with you. It is that need for attention, for approval, for love. Addicts become emotional leeches, the vortex in the soul, the gravitational pull of emotion, sucking the life out of those around you.

This isn't necessarily malicious or intentional, though it can be. But the greatest horror of it all is that it is unconscious. This is the disconnect. And it is this disconnect that leads to all the damage, taking away our ability to be real. It's always as if there is "something" wrong, that something is nagging at us, pulling at us, taking us away from reality. Even in a crowded room, we feel lonely. In a crowded room we may even feel more lonely, more frightened.

Yet there is an innocent desire at the base of it and that desire is to be loved. Beyond the pain, beyond the attempt to cover it up, beyond the desire for healing and wholeness is the desire for love. To love and to be loved. Addicts and people with mental illness do not intentionally become selfish, do not set out to live a life of narcissism and vanity. But the force of that which drives them leads to this behaviour. And it is incredibly difficult to break free from it, to be come "other" centered, to stop giving in order to get back, to stop hiding and putting on a front out of fear.

Addiction is rooted in fear.

Hurt people hurt people.

Healed people help people.

There is help available. If you look around, there are many offering to help, many proposed solutions to our addictions, to our wounds, to those things that keep us disconnected.

As long as there is still breath in our lungs, there is hope.