Honesty With Myself

If I’m going to be brutally honest with myself, I am comfortably addicted to drugs, and while this has not caused massive, destructive upheavals in my life like alcohol did (which I ceased using over 11 years ago), the impacts actually, in some ways, may be worse considering they bubble and persist just below the surface, undetectable, and manageable-but-not-manageable, considering the grasp I feel like it has over all aspects of my life.

First, in continuing to upload music which had been mastered by Neks, the audio engineer whom I used to use on Fiverr, I had a polished look across several years as a sort of time capsule or catalog of a period in my life spanning as far back as 2012, then more prominently from 2015-2017.

The inspiration for this music which I made at the time had largely been the hip hop music which I listened to nearly constantly, which is evident in my vocal delivery, as well as in the style of the beats I would make, but also in the lyrical content. Even with that being said, there was a constant through-line: drug usage being glorified or otherwise constantly referred to, as if affirmed, and I know that the reason was that I thought it accurately fit the rapper persona which I thought I emulated, and which ultimately is only that—a persona, a facade, a fictional or exaggerated character.

Second, one thing I noticed as consistent even to this day is near-obsessive fixation on referring to, glorifying abuse of Adderall, one of the substances which I still use to this day, as if the persona or ‘voice’ who rapped about those things even over 10 years ago is still alive in me today, still demanding that its needs be met or otherwise excusing them.

I found that odd, considering the fact that I no longer make music, nor smoke weed (the two had been inextricably linked when I made beats, wrote rap songs, recorded, and mixed them), listening to the lyrics of the songs was like revealing this younger, lesser-experienced version of myself across a relatively small period of time which never grew up, if I’m being brutally honest. That’s not simply to say that drug use is immature, though I suppose in some ways it is, I simply refer to that observation that this flagrant and repeated mentioning, glorifying or alluding to the drug usage (which primarily revolved around Adderall but also weed and other abused pharmaceutical substances) is still present in its preserved form, and that the lyrics I heard when revisiting the old music was like hearing repeated verbalized thoughts, beliefs, assertions in ways I could not simply fathom nor articulate on my own, even if ruminating.

While I might find it easy to gawk and convict safely from this observer’s perspective, an issue which hearing how little this particularly fixation with abusing Adderall, so faithfully preserved, had changed even after all this time, all of these life events, lessons, and experiences. With that said, the issue lies in the fact that my rational mind can identify, analyze, even condemn these thoughts or patterns, sometimes even accompanying desires to want to change, the desires to maintain “what I have”, or even the more unconscious reactions, preparations, presumptions, acts always seem to dominate, most of the time in a way that feels routine and therefore goes completely unchallenged as though it’s happening automatically.

In other words, I always ‘want’ to make sure that I have the amount of substance which I would like to use for the weekend when it approaches during my work week, I want to make sure I have both Adderall to get high, Xanax to come back down, level it out, or go to sleep. Other automatic actions include me purchasing new quantities of the substance whenever I’m running low or packing them alongside my nicotine pouches so that I can consume the first tablet of the evening an hour before work ends on my Friday (which is not actually Friday but rather my current work week has my two days off as Wednesday and Thursday).

All-in-all I guess I find it somewhat embarrassing, even though I suppose I thought it was cool whenever I originally made the music, perhaps like I successfully fit the persona I sought to uphold and present, but now it rings as immature for the two reasons mentioned previously—because adjusted adults do not have substance abuse problems they simply do nothing about and also because the features of the behaviors have largely remained the same, governed by the same motivations, willfully ignorant, flagrantly evasive, even, at times of a life which not only included this hardcore abuse of drugs, but never even considered them regularly if at all.

Finally, allow me to mention that, I’m worried because I know I want to maintain ‘what I have’, in otherwise I want to remove the hazards and limitations this addiction imposes without sacrificing the lifestyle, which is impossible and irrational, and that I have absolutely no idea what a mode of consciousness nor outward-appearing lifestyle or behavioral habits, pastimes, activities, routines, engagements would look like, feel like, or what challenges or otherwise alleviations they might bring. I suppose that mystery frightens me more than excites or appeals to me.

I know that I have other motivations. They just find themselves subservient to the preservation of the drug-infused lifestyle which I currently perpetuate. I feel (though am not certain) that, like my cessation of alcohol usage, it will be deliberate alterations in actions and even mindsets, enforced over a period of dedicated time, and that I won’t need to hit some uniquely tragic or destructive low in order to force the change, nor do I feel like I ought to find my remedy for change in a strictly clinical setting. I say this because I do not believe it to be necessary for this problem, one which is purely a selfish reenactment of desired behaviors without challenging nor questioning, asserting them, with the focus being on temporal, even carnal pleasure or otherwise alleviation of boredom, anxieties, discomfort, etc., to ultimately be “cured” or spurred towards change. Rather, the problem revolves around myself—it’s entirely focused on myself, perpetuated by myself, isolates myself in service of the drug. If only I knew where to start.