Dear Addiction,
This is my final goodbye to my addiction to drugs, alcohol, eating disorder, codependency, negative self talk, self hatred, and need to be accepted by others.
You started taking over my life at the young age of fifteen when I was lost and vulnerable during divorce. I felt lost and unable to control anything that was happening around me. I said no to you for years, determined I was not going to let anything affect my studies or extra curricular activities I loved so much.
That New Years Eve I gave into you for the first time. I grabbed that bottle of vodka, putting it straight to my mouth, feeling it burn down my throat and into my stomach. I hated the way you tasted but loved the way you made me feel. Soon enough I was blackout drunk and not feeling any of the pain I felt all day everyday. Then your rath set in and I came to sitting on the floor throwing up all over myself. This was the beginning of our sick and tumultuous love affair.
You presented yourself in many different forms over the next nineteen years of my life in drugs, people, and food. Whenever I did not want to feel, or wanted to become someone I wasn’t, you always showed up.
After alcohol I found the devil himself, which I believed was my perfect drug, Adderall, my senior year of college. It gave me energy for days for everything from study, work, binge drinking all night, and killed my appetite. This helped me stay thin and sent my eating disorder into overdrive, and enabled my desire to always be “perfect”. Very quickly you turned on me again and became my every waking thought. I would not sleep for days on end and barely made it through my student teaching. You took me from being an honor student to barely graduating and not getting to walk in my commencement ceremony. You took me into such a dark, sad place; alone and addicted to you.
I got engaged to a man who also was in love with you and three people in a relationship does not work. To get away from you, my unhealthy relationship, and impending relationship I moved all the way across the country. I thought I had escaped you but you came back in full force, worse than ever, again in the form of alcohol.
Over these nineteen years we were together you destroyed my relationships with men, my family, and friends. You repeatedly destroyed my health, left me homeless and living with strange men just to survive. When you wore off I fell asleep at the wheel, rear ending another car and fleeing the scene. My car was totalled which left me without a car for two years. You wore me down to ninety five pounds and a shell of a person.
You took everything from me, including my will to live another day trapped in your hell. I couldn’t take it anymore and attempted to take my own life by overdosing. When I woke up in the ICU I was so mad that, again, I had failed at another thing in my life. Could I not do anything right?
Little did I know that surviving through it to see another day was the best thing that ever happened to me! This was my breaking point, and I officially had enough with you and our toxic relationship! I finally have the strength to end this, let you go, and say goodbye forever. You no longer have control over me! Today I love myself more than I ever loved you!
I can not wait for what I have in front of me, which you are no longer needed or wanted in. This is goodbye and good riddance forever. I would like to say that I wished you the best but I wish you and all of your friends never existed and stopped ruining so many people’s lives.
Crystal
Photo Credits
Photo is pixabay creative commons
Guest Author Bio
Crystal Hampton
I am 37 years old, with 5 years sober. I work for Recovery Local, a digital marketing company that advocates spreading awareness on the disease of addiction. Our company was founded by and staffed with recovering addicts cultivating recovery resources through sharing our own experience, strength, and hope.
Congratulations on the strength, courage, generosity and honesty of your journey- all the best going forward one day at a time.