The Weight of Air: A Story of the Lies about Addiction and the Truth about Recovery

From the beginning of high school, all other substances were readily available and liberally consumed by my friends, who used weed and booze like an essential garnish for activities. Peer pressure was rampant with hallucinogens and cocaine. I experimented and hated the effects. Reality wasn’t the problem. I was.

I didn’t want to be sad, but I didn’t know why I was sad or how not to be sad or how to talk about it. I was broken. I felt broken. My body ached. My stomach hurt. I couldn’t sleep. Nothing was pleasurable. Every morning, I woke up knowing I’d failed before my feet hit the ground. At night, I’d lie in bed and wish for a terminal disease.

I’ve spent my life contorting, conforming, concealing, and operating from a place of fear.

Sobriety focuses on abstinence, whereas recovery heals the wounds that led to drugs in the first place. It’s a process. And it doesn’t automatically start when you get sober. Why would it? Pain doesn’t end when you stop using painkillers. It gets worse.

I need to stop pretending to be someone else and stop worrying about making everyone else happy. I need to make some changes and accept that all I can control is how I react to what I can’t control.

The things I did near the end. I’m just so relieved you never . . . I had no idea what I was capable of until I got to that point.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get hit by a bus or be pushed in front of a subway. Pianos and safes and anvils fall from pulleys in cartoons—why not in real life? Are there random acts of cyanide poisoning? Why am I so nonchalant about life and death? Why is “nonchalant” a word but “chalant” isn’t?

Mom wipes her eyes and signs the sales slip without hesitation, spending money she doesn’t have, on equipment I lied about owning, to a guy who hired me to do a job I’m not qualified for, in a place I don’t deserve to live, probably with a girlfriend I can’t seem to break up with.