Learn from my mistakes.
When you are in hell, the trees prevent you from seeing the forest.
Only if you manage to survive your addictions and self-destructive behaviors will you have a chance to reflect on what happened.
But you will come to a different conclusion than you think.
In my case, it’s been years since I quit drugs, alcohol, and all the destructive behaviors you can imagine, and I’m still piecing together the puzzle of the decade I spent walking through hell.
And this is the most disturbing conclusion I’ve come to.
Hold on because you’re going to get your head blown off.
In hell, there is a devil
One of the things that I see more clearly, thanks to the distance that the years have given, is that for me, going out to a party was an amusement park called hell in which you had to pay the entrance fee to a demon when you entered.
(Note: Please understand the above as a metaphor).
The problem was that the ticket agent was a demon who charged you more and more each day for the entrance fee.
And you couldn’t just pay for that ticket with money: you did it with youth and innocence.
Every night I went out and wallowed in vice and addiction, I lost more of my innocence and youth.
As I sustained that lifestyle night after night for more than a decade, the ticket got more expensive each time because the cost was cumulative and exponential.
When youth and innocence are in short supply.
When I turned 30, I realized I had no more innocence to delude myself; I was a cynic. And I couldn’t pay my way with it.
I also needed youth. I would go to nightclubs and feel out of place.
Try going to a rave with 20-somethings in your 30s, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
So the devil will no longer sell you a ticket because you have no innocence and youth.
At that moment, the ticket agent from hell doesn’t want you anymore; he prefers new victims: young people full of vitality and youth to cheat and get them into all kinds of addictions.
And then you plead to that demon, and he says to you. Okay, I’ll still let you in, but the price now will be even higher.
New price to pay
Have you ever been out partying and seen an older person drunk that everyone is laughing at?
Well, that’s the price to pay.
Since you no longer have youth and innocence, the new price is dignity and health if you want to continue spending your days in hell,
And again, the entrance fee is increasing every day.
Every day you party in hell, you fall lower, and your health suffers more.
Until you end up becoming a social waste that everyone takes for lost.
It happened to me.
And the first thing I noticed was that people who used to love to party with me started to avoid me.
I was living in a shared apartment with other students from my university, and overnight they moved out.
My friends at the time stopped hanging out with me.
Everyone matured.
That’s why they stayed away from me so they wouldn’t become contaminated.
In the end, what I couldn’t understand was that I was stuck in a stage of life that had lasted too long.
As a friend once said, “Your problem is that if partying was a cycle, you’ve stretched it too far.”
The danger of relapse
You can come out of the darkness, but getting the darkness out of you is tough.
And the ticket taker from hell knows that.
The first time I quit my bad habits — alcohol, tobacco — I spent a year clean.
But the ticket taker seduced me, “AG, the price is not so high now. Since you’ve recovered, you can repay me with your joy and well-being.”
And you fall for it, and you smoke a cigarette without realizing there is no such thing as a last cigarette and end up smoking three packs of Luckie Strike.
Or you have a glass of Ballantines and end up drinking half a bottle of Whisky every night, more beers, more shots.
Next thing you know, you’re back in hell, and the flames are burning hotter than ever.
You start drinking and smoking more than your first stint in hell, and the admission price becomes outrageous again.
The devil who charges you the entrance fee wants to consume you completely.
Takeaway.
If you are going through it every time you go out to party, imagine a demon charging you a higher price for that drink, cigarette, or lousy decision you are about to make.
Little by little, by becoming aware of the trick that the demon of addiction and self-destruction uses on you, you will be able to escape from its clutches.
I hope this article has helped you.
A virtual hug
AG
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