“People jeopardize their lives for the sake of making the moment livable. Nothing sways them from the habit—not illness, not the sacrifice of love and relationship, not the loss of all earthly goods, not the crushing of their dignity, not the fear of dying. The drive is that relentless.”
-Gabor Maté, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
Pandemic Season Rhymes With Relapse Season
Falling back into our old destructive ways has never been easier. Life is failing us. Hope is another lie thrown around by the ones in power. And us, well, we’re yet again powerless over the substance of our choice.
Drinking to forget because this pandemic of nonsense made us remember how much it hurts to feel completely alienated and misunderstood. Some are losing their jobs. Others are losing their mental health. The common theme is that we’re all to some degree losing control. Losing control of some aspect of our lives. Because things are no longer what we’ve known them to be.
Survival of the richest is the name of the pandemic game. The most fragile ones have been put completely to the side. I call for discrimination. Covid-19 discriminates. I even want to call for narcissism while at it. Why does covid-19 gets all the press, all the spotlight, steals the show? Who gets to decide what societal issue is more important? The ones sitting on their golden throne of privilege?
It’s a known scientific fact (real science, I assure you!) that the best predictor of relapse is high stress, especially one that is sudden. Now add a high degree of continual uncertainty unto that stress and you’re surely headed for trouble. How not to lose control over our own fragile selves when the world out there is completely out of control in every sense of the word?
