You’re Self-Medicating and You Don’t Know It

How Self-Medicating Is Normal

Do you know what the moments are that make you think, “I need a drink?” And, without thinking, you go to the cabinet or the refrigerator and pour yourself a glass or pop a bottle of something.

You did it instantaneously. It’s almost as if the time between thought and action is nonexistent. You don’t pause to question why the moment makes you crave something so immensely. You don’t stop to let the feeling of the moment sink in. There is not even a consideration for anything else to happen. All there is, is, “I need a drink,” and then you have one.

You probably don’t consider this a mania. How could you possibly? You? No. There’s no way. It’s normal to want alcohol after…

A stressful day
A heartbreak
An argument
A failure
A discovery that your father has stage 4 cancer
An understanding that in his current state he can’t care for himself
Reoccuring emails from your bloodline filled with judgment, anger, and threats of lawsuits about things beyond your control
A call from your mother explaining to you how your small achievements are actually a disgrace because they don’t include her, “enough.”
A questioning from your father that the lawsuit threat from his sisters was over three weeks and, “Why can’t you just move past it.”
Facing the unknown
Realizing you don’t have control over anything or anyone but yourself

I’m so curious as to how self-medicating has become normalized. Now, I’m not saying that it is bad. I’m also not saying that it is good. I’m saying that our societies have normalized the masking of feeling discomfort by self-medicating.

Is It really Self-Medicating?

Does that expression make you uncomfortable? Self-medicating. To medicate is synonymous with treatment, remedy, or cure. Take the good or bad label off of the term. That’s what it is.

Think about it this way:

Ailment — Scratch: Cure — Lavender Oil / Tea tree oil / Neosporin + Bandaid

Ailment — Broken Arm: Solution — Cast + Painkillers (Typically)

Ailment — Headache: Treatment — Water, Sleep, Ibuprofen

Ailment — Surgery : Remedy: Pills, Rest, Physical Therapy

Ailment — Emotional Discomfort: Medication — Alcohol, Other mind-altering substance, Future Tripping, Thinking you can control everything and everyone, Micromanaging, binge eating, and the list continues.

We know to go to a doctor for physical discomfort. For many, we don’t know where to turn for emotional discomfort. They’re both just as common. I would venture to say that emotional discomfort happens far more frequently than physical discomfort. Yet, instead of seeking professional help and guidance, we do it ourselves.

A little DIY situation.

PSA Our emotions are not popsicle sticks, and we are not held together by some roll-on paste that barely works. It probably doesn’t feel that way. It probably does feel like you’re life is a bunch of piss poorly assembled popsicle sticks and that everything is about to crumble if someone walks in the room with heavy feet. Well, that’s because you’re treating your emotions that way.

And that’s okay.

You get to choose to do that. But, I’m going to point out something that may or may not be apparent to you.

Your emotional discomfort still exists despite the self-medication.

Eventually, the numbing where’s off and the pain is right where you left it. If I’m thinking about my own experiences, it was everywhere. My pain flowed through my body in my veins alongside my blood. Naturally, I’d have to numb again. Who wants to feel pain?

I get it.

You know that list that I provided a few paragraphs ago? All of those things happened in the last 3 months. That’s in addition too:

The pandemic.
My understanding of the oppression that exists in my country that I have unconsciously participated in.
Grieving the preventable loss of countless lives.
Watching my country’s leadership make decision after decision that prioritizes a convoluted definition of liberty over equality.
And a lot of other day-to-day things that cause discomfort.

I Stopped Self-Medicating

Nine Months ago, in the face of all of this, I would have turned to booze. 9 months ago, I was far more tuned to myself and my emotions and my healing path and my spirituality and all the other deep gooey stuff that comes with finding yourself than I’ve ever been in my entire life. AND STILL. Bottle up. Not just bottle up. Trying to Control. Work obsession. Future tripping. All of these are forms of self-medication, and all of these I did.

I don’t like to feel sad.

I don’t like to feel angry.

I don’t like to feel helpless.

I don’t like to feel scared.

I don’t like to feel unworthy.

I don’t like to feel unloved.

I don’t like to feel anything that causes me emotional discomfort because I’m a fucking human.

And yet, 9 months later, I did. I felt it all. Sleepless nights. Anxiety attacks. Sobbing. Days where brushing my teeth was too much for me to do. My pain pulsed through my body with a fire I haven’t felt since I was 7.

At first, I tried to resist it. I plunged myself into building my business. An old addiction that I pretended wasn’t a problem. I Netflix numbed. I created problems with my partner so that I could have a “legitimate” reason to be bothered. Those legitimate things? Just trying to control his every move. And I smoked cigarettes — a lot.

My smoking was a part of my self-medication habit. As was my working. And my controlling. I knew it was, but I was in denial. Then, I read a passage from The Mother. In it, she says that if we cannot pretend to be ignorant of things that we know and that if we want to continue to do the things that we know are bad, that is fine, but that we under no circumstances should try to live a life that reflects otherwise.