I can’t stop.

I just can’t figure why, whenever I try, I keep coming back to the very things that haunt me. They are not my friends, mind you: the ones who are meant to comfort you at your worst times and support you at your best, but the ones who kick you down, and make you miserable along with them. As the adage goes: misery loves company, and the substances I pollute my body with are determined to make it that way.

So then, why is it that I continue going back to them, like an abusive spouse who can’t help but believe she can change the behavior of her husband? I am miserable, and yet the only time I feel happy is when I am either sparking another stick up, or taking another swig out of the bottle. It’s the only time when I can feel…human, as if I can experience even the slightest of empathy and emotions toward others.

I’m sure the other patrons at the bar I frequent feel the same way…most of them are going through their own struggles, such as one man who had been depressed for three years, or another that got taken to the cleaners in the divorce he had from his wife, without even receiving custody of the kids, or even the poor homeless man that hadn’t been without a proper meal for God knows how long, only surviving on the kindness of strangers; most notably the bartender who allows him to stay in exchange for his occasional help in the kitchen.

As for myself, the only coping mechanism I have is the books I lazily gloss over whilst thinking about the last time I had been happy. And so I continue to read…and just like my addictions, I’ll keep coming back, never to stop.

Photo by Talles Alves on Unsplash