I Am Pluto, Not The Sun....It's Easier Not Being The Center of the Universe!

When an addict is using and at the times when we're not, we think the world revolves around us. It comes with the territory. The lies, cover-ups, scheming, denial, justifying, manipulation and self focus is relentless and continuous. I had no control over these thoughts and actions. My disease was all powerful and pulled my strings like a marionette trying to imitate a real person. The physical craving to use and the obsession to escape create a world of "self". The desired drinking or drug effect starts out as self-medication and self-satisfaction, self-confidence or self-indulgence, but to an alcoholic or addict those feelings slowly evolve to the other side of "self".

It's important to note that if you ever experience any of the following descriptions you don't have to run to your doctor or local recovery group. My definition of addiction, combined with the proper definition paraphrased, is as follows. I am an alcoholic and addict because I cannot use mind altering chemicals safely, and once I start I can not stop, even if I want to. When these drugs hit my blood stream, and mind, I think only of more, me, mine, more, now! While the rest of the "earthlings" chat and sip their Chablis I begin to panic that there isn't enough left for everybody, particularly me! When I would go to BYO parties, I would drink other people's booze then take mine home. If you held the doob too long I would tap my foot nervously waiting for my next hit, all the time thinking you were a bogart and wasting the stuff! Don't talk son, smoke! Hit it fat, then sit and chat!

When I am under the influence I can describe all of my avenues of thinking in two statements. "What about me?" and "WHAT ABOUT YOU!" The what about me was that I wanted to be the center of the world I was in at any given moment. The attention should be directed and conformed to my wants, needs, feelings, desires and moods. "Yeah Me, ME, Mine...." as JWL sang. If too much attention was paid to other planets (people) in my orbit it was "What about me?" I don't care about your day or how bad it was. That's a bummer about your dog. Can't you see I am in pain here! Everyone in a room was thinking or should be thinking and talking about me. I'm the lost child here! Can't you people hear my screams? "Excuse me Tom, this is your addiction speaking. I am the only one in the universe who gets it! Follow me and you know you will feel better. They don't care about you like I do. Trust me! Have I ever let you down?"

At the end of my run all of the good "self" related terms made a 180 degree turn to the negative and neurotic. My "WHAT ABOUT YOU?!" statement is how I reacted when my improper behavior, ignorance, lack of feelings, guilt and selfishness were pointed out by a friend or loved one. I could be caught stealing money from your purse and lay the "WHAT ABOUT YOU?" attacks out until you believed me or just wanted me to shut up. I was never wrong, never to be questioned and never took the blame, even for my blaring screw ups. It was always because of you, or my boss, or my family that I did the rotten, unfeeling things I did. It was not MY fault.

 I hold a vast data bank in my head cataloguing every mean or hurtful thing that anyone ever did to me and everyone else. If you cornered me on something that I was clearly wrong for saying or doing, I could scan my database and spit back every rotten thing you ever said or did to me or anyone else from the time of your conception. I always wrapped it up with a shot to your most vulnerable secret corner of pain, the bulls eye of your darkest secret. Nothing was off the table. I would say what I had to to get out of my uncomfortable spaces.

The whole time these two dialogues went through my head my addiction played me all the way. It was like Mick telling the Rock to "Get up and get the bum!" Addiction knows how to push the right button to get the user to turn on and then push the hot button that made others turn off! I often would start fights out of nowhere to cover both bases and give me a reason to escape into oblivion again. The negative "self's" consumed every fiber of my being at the end. In recovery these thoughts don't evaporate. I spend each day trying to recognize my faults and eliminating them. God helps me with that.

The end of my run was filled with "self" as well. Self-loathing, self-serving, self-gratifying, self-pity, self-denial, self-destruction and selfish self, self, self's! If I didn't stop using and drinking when I did and don't work on my recovery every day, it is an absolute certainty that I will end up all by my SELF! I will end up like Pluto cast out of everone's orbit and floating alone on the outside of my universe.