Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Inexplicable Them
If you’re not careful, you can see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in every addict and alcoholic you know. Don’t know any? Don’t be so sure.
The trick about addiction is that you can analyze it but not explain it. You can never figure out why some people live through it and others don’t.
When people are incredibly talented or smart, their addiction makes no sense. But the fact of the matter is that addiction never makes sense, no matter how gifted someone is.
The agony of the observers of someone’s addiction, the person’s family and friends, is in the relentless trying to find the small nail on which to hang the explanation for their loved one’s addiction.
Because if you find the nail, you can take the claw end of a hammer and pull it out.
But there is no nail.
No one can come to terms with that, there not being an answer for addiction, particularly when the result of the addiction is death. Explanation, blame, reason, all of them have to be parked under a big sign that says “inexplicable” and left there, probably forever.
Addiction isn’t exactly the same as being struck by lightening but it’s close. Why that person and not this one? It’s inexplicable.
2 Comments on “Inexplicable Them”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
In my mind it’s all about brain chemistry. Just like some people have a genetic predisposition for certain cancers, some have a brain that becomes addicted easily. For me, sugar is like crack. It just hasn’t killed me…yet.
You got me thinking. I know in my head that addiction is a physical disease with behavioral implications, maybe something like Cerebral Palsy or a learning disability. Unfortunately addiction is so much more destructive to the person and the ones who love them, and we see it as a moral defect. If only the person could control their behavior, the addiction would be cured. It would be so wonderful if they could find a way to turn off the brain signals that go haywire. Thanks for your very sensitive and honest post.