Thoughts on my Negativity Rennaissance; my version of Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous definition of success.
To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American transcendentalist essayist, poet, philosopher
To be laughed at derisively and deservedly: To attract the worship of idiots and the suspicion of annoying children whose out-of-control behavior you must manage so that natural selection doesn't wipe them out on your watch; to be trolled by bad-faith actors and realize that you will never be part of the Good Ol' Boys' Club; to destroy your inner and outer beauty and cultivate the grotesque; to find the faults in others, not because you're looking particularly hard but because they're so godd*mn obvious; to work like a dog your whole life and still leave behind nothing, your name and memory as dead as your plague-thin corpse, buried by chain-gangers in a pauper's cemetery... To know that, no matter how hard you tried to ease the suffering of others, it was futile because life is suffering, pain is power, and none of this matters, anyway. This is to have known life.
Brian, 21st-century American nihilist, junkie, blogger, midwit
I've been experiencing something of a Rennaissance of negativity lately. Not in a depressive way, though; more like a coming-back-to-reality way.
I was definitely on the pessimistic and cynical side when I was younger, and I know that my true self - the one who isn't buoyed by the false comfort of opioids - still has a lot of that in him.
For the most part, I'm glad that I've learned how to stay hopeful, upbeat, confident, but sometimes it all strikes me as a bit, I don't know - futile? desperate? weak?
I'm not sure that I love the term, but there is truth to the concept of toxic positivity. I've been noticing it quite a bit in the Instagram addiction / alcoholism recovery sphere lately - all of the saccharine accounts that post the same insipid stuff every day about how AWESOME sobriety is (buy my merch) and how much these creators DEFINITELY DON'T MISS alcohol and drugs.
So, yeah, I've been on a bit of a negativity jag lately.
It feels real. It feels good.
In addition to this being rooted in my protracted methadone withdrawal, it also has to do with a new friend who I've made through this blog: Someone who has a life-threatening, possibly terminal illness that has dragged him down from day one.
He was in the hospital this week, and God - the sadness and unfairness and loneliness of life came roaring back when I thought about him in the hospital for the umpteenth time... Just trying to regain his ability to breathe, struggling to manage his pain and anxiety, grappling with the necessity of a transplant.
Fighting so hard just to stay here and continue to suffer.
***
"You seem more like yourself, lately," Sarah, one of my friends from the methadone clinic, commented last week. "Less happy, but also much, much funnier."
Last Wednesday, I was talking with a group of four or five other patients in the waiting room before dosing. A counselor, who we'll call Martha - a homespun woman who is probably in her late fifties and has worked at the clinic forever - approached our group to remind one of us about an upcoming appointment.
Without really being invited, Martha joined our conversation about the national policy being pushed at the moment (finally) to get as many methadone patients as many take-home doses as possible, as not having to come to the clinic to dose every day increases program enrollment and retention and decreases the stress / inconvenience in patients' lives.
"I don't agree with it. We might as well be offering a methadone drive-through!" Martha declared.
I've been in groups led by Martha before, so I know her shtick: "Food is my drug."
Now, I'm not saying this to body shame her (for real), but the woman weighs in at at least 350 pounds. So, if food is her drug, Martha probably needs rehab; "the blind leading the blind" comes to mind.
I've always felt ambivalent about treatment professionals using the "X is my drug" tact with addicts.
I understand that gambling, sex, food all work on the same dopaminergic pathways in the midbrain, but the thing is that - because drugs are exogenous chemical agents that jack this midbrain reward circuitry up to hundreds of times its natural level of function - they involve a much more profound, dangerous rewiring that is much harder to correct and then heal the damage from.
Because of my autoimmune thyroid condition (Graves' Disease), I've been in a position where my metabolism has suddenly, drastically slowed, as a result of which I had to lose significant weight by adjusting my eating habits. I understand that everyone struggles with different things, but believe me - if you can't master your hunger and shift your diet, you don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting sober from alcohol, let alone defeating the Final Bosses of heroin or benzo addiction.
If you're interested in a quantitative perspective on how different factors influence dopamine production in the midbrain pleasure centers, check out the following chart on the percent dopamine increases achieved from food, video games, sex, cocaine, amphetamines, and methamphetamine (the king of dopamine-releasing drugs). These figures are, of course, approximations, and there are many other factors that influence how addictive a drug is.
I've seen heroin placed at anywhere from 500% to 750%, for those of you who are curious about where high-octane opioids weigh in.
As I've written about elsewhere, some porn can actually increase dopamine more than IRL sex (which sounds shocking unless you've slept with a couple of my exes); this is one of the reasons for neuroscientists expressing concern over how porn consumption is changing human sexual expectations and behavior.
So, it's a matter of degree, yes. But in certain contexts, the whole "food is my drug" thing can come across as a little oblivious, perhaps even flippant.
It's a bit like telling a pancreatic cancer patient that you know what it's like to be sick because you get bad headaches.
After all, you can't overdose on food (though you can die in the long term from the health effects of overconsumption, of course). Moreover, it's unlikely that your family will disown you, you'll lose your job, you'll be arrested or go broke from overeating.
These thoughts were swirling through my mind as Martha embarked upon another one of her "food is my drug" meditations.
I was also thinking about the thinly veiled hypocrisy of the clinic staff, who assure us that addiction is a disease, not a moral failing, that methadone is just like insulin or any other medication - but who then turn around and act like Corrections Officers, demanding urine samples and travel itineraries and telling us that we can't take Over the Counter painkillers or eat poppy seed bagels.
Can you imagine any other patient demographic being treated that way?
"Hey Martha, imagine if your doctors treated you the way that you guys treat us," I blurted out.
"If they made you eat your meals in front of a big glass window, under supervision [like we take our methadone doses]."
"Think about how it'd feel if they refused to give you your insulin or Metformin or whatever when your bloodwork showed that you'd had a cheat meal."
"And imagine if a Big Mac was a felony!" I added for good measure.
Things were very quiet, all of a sudden.
Martha's mouth was open in a perfect "O."
Sarah had this incredibly serious expression on her face that I happened to recognize as her final defense before she breaks into uncontrollable giggling.
Leon and Mike started laughing like hyenas.
"Uh, yeah, that's what I've always thought about the whole 'food is my drug thing,' anyway," I finished lamely.
"Get ready for a 'random' drug test next time Martha makes up the list," Sarah muttered as we walked out to her car.
Oops.
Was I wrong, though?
***
If you didn't hate this blog and want to read more content that you might not hate, maybe check out Drug Dealer's Sonnet: People Helping People.
For more phoned-in poetry and half-baked philosophy, consult my reflections / poetic rumination on Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence.
Stay well.
If you can't manage well right now, then stay alive, at least!
Love you all,
B.
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