Dear Addict, a Goodbye Letter

Dear Addict,

I don’t know why, but I don’t want to let you go. Maybe I am to scared, maybe I don’t know what I will do without you, maybe I just think I’ll die without you. You kept me safe for a very long time, you held me as a child during some very dark times in my life. When I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I found you. You comforted me, you made me feel safe. You made me feel in control, you gave me this sense of power over my life that I never experienced before. You told me everything was going to be okay during the craziest times of my life. So I decided from that day one that I would keep you around, that whenever life got to crazy, I would always come back to you. I would always at least have you. Even when my world around me seemed as if it were falling apart, I could always fall back on you. My addict.

We had some wonderful times together, or so I thought they were. When I think of the times I acted out it always starts off sweet and turns sour towards the end. Maybe at one point in my life I needed you and you needed me. Now I know that I no longer need you in my life, the chaos you once used to tame is now the same chaos you create to bring me back in. You are no longer my ally, you have become my worst enemy. That’s how it always works right? like in the comic books? The person your usually closest to ends up being the villain. You are no longer my ally, you are waiting out in the darkness of my mind, constantly trying to find a way in to try to get me to come back to you. You taunt me with sweet words and gestures but underlying beneath all of that is pain, anger, hatred, gluttony, sloth, envy, wrath. Those are just some.

You are in pain because I no longer want to have you in my life and I understand that, you have every right to be hurt, I am hurting as well. I will miss you and I will think of you from time to time, but in the end I know that our relationship was unhealthy, you caused me more pain than joy, you held me back from being the person I was born to be, you were scared of a world without you and you didn’t want me to think like that. You have stolen too much from me to ever try to let you back in, so this is my goodbye letter to you. While I know that as I say goodbye now that I will think of calling you, texting you, sometimes I will even seek you out. But I will always come back to the reality. The reality was that my life is better without you and I will always be grateful for the way you kept me safe during those younger years, but now I need to learn how to handle life on my terms. Goodbye addiction.

-Michael

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