Addiction

I am drowning in _________.

I cannot make it stop

A persistent, agitating need to _______ something,

tugging, pulling at me.

Alone I stand before

the foaming wall of gray past

rushing at me

Craving crashing over me,

wave after wave

I hold myself against them,

As they batter me about

again, again, again.

I am drowning in _______.

The yearning is always there

But maybe that’s not right

Maybe I just can’t hear…

But I'm starting to.

There is something there

under the waves.

a whispered message,

an old truth.

I don’t know if I can,

if I can take it.

Maybe I can’t take the

pain of it.

What is the truth?

What I thought were

waves of craving are

actually waves of fear,

resentment, sadness, grief.

Old emotions, tensions,

frustrations coming back

to me in this moment,

stirring me up, pulling me

around.

Standing still,

with these edgy emotions

while not _________

feels like holding my breath.

Can I stand it? Can I

tolerate this stillness,

these feelings without

a fix, a little something…

No.

And so the waves come

back to me. I call them

back to me, abandoning

my self in this moment

returning to the fleeting

moments of safety

each ______ brings.

For a moment I can

breathe.

Now I understand,

Now I see.

The _______ washes away

this sense of

wrongness,

of panic.

Washes it

down inside me. Again,

again, the ______ washes

over me, through me.

Filling me up, saving me

from this intolerable moment.

But drowning me over time.