CW: Mentions of suicidal ideation, death, addiction.
I grew up in a household where I would regularly see my family members drink as a means of coping with the struggles of day-to-day life. We had it relatively well, my father with a stable job, my mother home, taking care of me. But nevertheless, we were not rich, nor particularly comfortable in our small, kind of run-down home in a small American town.
We toil and labor, drowning out our pain with the wails of those we see as less fortunate. But at the end of the day, we all have no choice but to participate in the means of our own subjugation.
Can we blame each other for blunting their pain? How can I draw a line between my choice to drink to be more comfortable and their choice to drink to become comfortable?
As a kid, I promised myself I would never drink. I saw how drinking transformed the people I loved into people I can never forgive again. My inner child will perhaps never forgive me, but that promise has long been forgotten. Sometimes we leave promises behind when it feels like there is no forward to carry it to. Two years ago, I would get drunk, get on hookup apps, hate my body, and prepare my death. This was almost daily, the only thing carrying me through the night being my lack of executive function, and inability to do the things I've planned.
I drank, since loving to live a life halfway was better than to hate living a life fully. When I, struggling with something as "simple" as the nature of my own existence could drink my tears away without fear of being labeled as "deviant filth," is it not hypocrisy to judge those who toil day-in and day-out for far less than they are worth, stressed to determine the source of their next meals that they must not use drugs? That dulling their pain is the coward's way out?
Who are we to call the people who granted us, with no thanks, our sense of livelihood "cowards"?
- xoxo