What makes some drugs hard and others not? Is it how fatal they can be or how socially unacceptable they are? What makes cocaine hard but not alcohol—doesn’t alcohol kill more people? For me, alcohol and drugs are two sides of the same coin. But others seem to want to make a distinction between the two, or one seem worse than the other.
Hard Drugs: Drugs that lead to physical and psychological addiction and potentially death. Wouldn’t alcohol definitely fall under this definition?
My therapist told me she took a class called “Alcohol and Other Drugs” and what a shift that was in her perception of addiction. It wasn’t “Alcohol and Drugs”…alcohol and other drugs. What makes you think they’re different?
What is your perception of hard drugs? What is your judgment of those who participate in using them?
My older brother, 31, died from alcoholism and my younger brother, 21, died from accidental opioid poisoning. Would you look at their deaths differently? Do you view one death as less shocking than the other? Does it seem less likely one would die from alcohol than “hard drugs” (alcohol kills more people than fentanyl!). Or do you lump alcoholics with “hard drug” addicts, in a category somewhere outside of your own drug use? And therefore you are normal, other, better, superior? I considered myself normal, once, too.
Before my older brother died, I confronted him several times about his drinking. He always turned it around on me—don’t I have a problem with drinking, too? Who was I to judge him? And I thought, but I don’t drink like you do. I drink casually. I am in control. I am not an alcoholic like you. I wish he was still here to tell me “I told you so”.
In his book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Gabor Mate implores loved ones of addicts to first conduct a compassionate self-inquiry before they confront or judge:
“Although we may believe we are acting out of love, if we are critical of others or work very hard to change them, it's always about ourselves… The alcoholic's wife is adding to the level of shame her husband experiences…In effect, she is saying to the addict, he is bad and she is good. Perhaps she is in denial about her addiction to certain attitudes, like self-righteousness, martyrdom, or perfectionism.'
While you pour the glass of wine you’ve waited all day for or order your third tequila soda from the bar, would you judge someone for picking up their fix? Isn’t the alcohol and the “hard drug” serving the same purpose? Numbing, relaxing, giving ease and comfort to the user? Whether the drugs are hard or soft, is not the issue. Rather, it is our addiction to them that is the problem.
And we are all addicted to something, whether or not we are able to see or admit it. We live in the age of addiction. Perhaps your addiction is not in alcohol or drugs, but in certain behaviors or attitudes.
As Garbor Mate wrote about his hard-core, drug-addicted clients, he began to recognize his own addictive tendencies. His addiction, while it may sound absurd, was to purchasing classical music.
“Addiction is any behavior, substance-related or not, associated with craving and instant pleasure and relief, where there are long-term negative consequences, and you still persist in it. You can love classical music and not be addicted to it, in the sense that you don’t have to have it right away, you’re not depending on it to give you escape from distress, you’re just enjoying it. And you’re not lying to your wife, and you’re not ignoring your children.”
Much like other psychological issues, addiction can affect people at various degrees of severity. Some people may be debilitated by it while others experience it more subtly in their day-to-day life. You may be completely ignorant of your addictive tendencies or even brush them off as silly character flaws.
Whether it’s drugs, social media, gambling, eating, not eating, working out, buying classical music, etc. (the list goes on ad infinitum), we’re all just attempting to reward that part of our brain that wants to release us from suffering.
Me and Hard Drugs
When I first stopped drinking in 2020, my cravings for “hard drugs” quietly took hold of me.
I felt that I had the no-drinking thing under control, so surprised was I by my total lack of interest in it. I didn’t realize that I had simply shifted addictions. If alcohol couldn’t numb me anymore, drugs would do the trick. To my brain, they yielded the same result.
Even though I stopped drinking I continued to party with friends (albeit less frequently/intensely than I once had. I discovered it is difficult to be high without being drunk…but still, I persisted!)
Once I realized that the partying, too, had to stop…once I realized I needed to cut EVERYTHING out…that’s when it got hard. That’s when I realized how hard life is without the weighted blanket of substances and how different the experience of living is when you have no way to escape it.
And once I walked into the rooms and introduced myself as “Lindsey, Alcoholic/Addict”, I realized there was no turning back. I had made the decision to face my fear of dying young. I accepted that alcohol and drugs had a hold over me and that I was powerless against them.
I had spent the majority of my 20s drinking heavily. And the latter half of my 20s using drugs recreationally. Getting clean meant entering this weird kind of quarter-life puberty. I didn’t/don’t know how to adult. I didn’t/don’t know how to regulate my emotions. I didn’t/don’t know how to feel my feelings. Just being happy can be excruciatingly overwhelming. I used to face every emotion with alcohol and drugs. Happy? Drink to it. Sad? Drink to it. Bored? Get fucked up. I didn’t know how to sit with myself and just be.
But I’m glad I realized that alcohol and drugs functioned the same way in my brain. One wasn’t better than the other. Or worse than the other. They are both drugs, and I am an addict.
Gabor Mate, referencing the Buddhist Wheel of Life, explains that we are all prone to addiction:
“The mandala revolves through six realms. Each realm is populated by characters representing aspects of human existence—our various ways of being. The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present.”
Most everyone you know has dwelled in this realm at some point in their life. Some move quickly through it, others linger, a great deal move back and forth through their lifetime, and others live in it every day.
I find myself explaining my addiction over and over to people who don’t understand it, although they are most likely living it. I feel judged and othered by some people, but more often than not ignored and glossed over. I see people drinking the way I did, using the way I did, numbing the way I did. I see them hurting the way I was, hating themselves the way I was, distracting away their troubles the way I was.
People tell me they never knew I had a problem. Meanwhile, they drink 5 days a week. They tell me they don’t understand why I can’t do certain drugs with them over the weekend if my problem is mainly alcohol. They offer me a sip of their cocktail. Other people turn away entirely. They stop calling, they stop inviting me, they sever ties. I must admit, this is when I want to judge. I see myself as trying so desperately to be better. I want to recognize patterns. I want to set boundaries. I want to move away from what no longer serves me. And it hurts to feel alone in that. To feel like I have the problem, but they don’t.
Does my recognizing my dependence on alcohol make you uncomfortable? Does my comparison of alcohol to drugs make you uneasy? When I entered recovery, a seasoned AA vet told me that my sobriety would hold up a mirror to everyone around me. She told me I would lose people who couldn’t face themselves. And I’ve lost a lot of people.
Sobriety is lonely. But I imagine it’s less lonely than death.
I wish I could tell my brothers that I see them, I understand them, and that their pain is a normal part of living. I wish I could have made them feel less alone. I wish I hadn’t shoved their hurt away. Or made them feel like their suffering was somehow different than mine.
I wish I had known what I know now.
Brave is the first word that come to me while reading this. I may be judging, but you’re brave.