In an errant venture in curiosity –
lured from savvy of cooler judgment,
he transcends the bounds of reality
into a state of altered awareness.
Overwhelmed by a rapid onset of
a buzzing sensation – The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him,
surging along the veins streaming
Euphoria through cells of his entire body:
Inside the body, with warm pleasure
waves flushing over the skin,
sloughing off all unpleasant feelings.
Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, eyeballs
rolling back from absolute bliss;
he savours the calm explosions of
the pulsating bubbles in his head.
A thrilling moment of disclosure
that ends in a lasting sedation,
ushering him into ‘wellbeing’
in a cosy blanket of content.
He fell in love with the narcotic.
And begins to relish its sweet fruition,
in a seemly pattern of use put in
the shade by his best interests.
A stake in normalcy that in time gives
way to his nightly soaring and drifting,
in an illusionary paradise of forgetting
where nothing hurts anymore.
In a progressive build of tolerance,
he grows quite an appetite for the opiate:
Wanting more and more, time and
again, to sustain the desired effects.
Seemingly oblivious to its lethal effects
on the pleasure centre of his brain,
that is being hijacked and
taken captive by the sedative.
A hostage ordeal that interferes
with the interior reality of his mind.
All at once he wants to ‘use’;
he begins to look forward to using.
At times he’d skip work chasing the dragon:
Pursuing the unreachable elation levels
of his ‘initial high’, in a vicious cycle of
ebbs and flows of mediocre and ecstasy;
Ending with the inevitable crash below
baseline, barely able to cater for his
basic needs. The habit, no longer is
the fun that it was intended to be.
The drug appears to offer reliefs
not justified by external realities;
the more he indulged, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.
Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays into the abyss of Addiction:
A dark weary place where priority disorder
is dictated by events outside his control.
It is this damaged protective instinct which
results in his sick fascination for the drug,
that renders him unfit to process rational
thoughts – a chronic disease of the brain!
In his harmful diversion from reality,
the mindblower always come first –
before his job, his goals, family, love,
friends, hobbies, personal hygiene.
Even sleep and primary survival tools
such as water and food are not left out.
He could be ill, he won’t care. No other
thoughts can cohabit in his world.
Fervidly invested in his fantasy world,
the drug has kindled in him an inner
turmoil – which leaves an overriding feeling
of emptiness that aches in his heart.
The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: His relentless attempts to regain
sobriety are negated by anxiety, and sickly
‘comedowns’ that intensify with severity.
These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the stimulant’s induced
alterations, in the chemistry of his brain’s
system of reward and punishment.
They’re the rebound effects of his addiction
to the drug: Nature’s way of making him
atone for the supreme euphoria that
is ravished during the opiate highs.
The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,
he continues on the foreboding route
in which he has no power of deviation.
Despairing in the clutches of addiction;
the drugs traumatize him, they
infuse toxins into his spine, and they
dull his inner light day after day.
In a downward spiral that stunned those
acquainted with him; he lost his job,
sold his car, and was evicted from
a home which he had stripped bare.
The psychoactive substance has evoked
a negative ripple felt throughout all that
he’s part of – a brutal realization that
settles in with an excruciating pain.
Dolefully, he rues his dire ignorance about
the drug that had led to his fall into its bait.
With the best resolve he could muster,
he strives to make his will like stone –
A facade that is soon razed by his urgent
need for the drug merely to feel ‘normal’.
With a huge burden of guilt, he wanders
deeper into the haze of his own misery.
He begins to hit his lowest points.
Ethics and morals take flight;
he disappears completely into
the sinister shadow of addiction.
In his besotting passion for the drug,
he would go to any means to fuel
the habit: He would cheat, steal,
lie or betray anyone to get his ‘fix’.
Like spreading of cancer from one spot
in the body to another, his disease
has metastasized way beyond him,
affecting the welfare of his whole family.
As frequent targets for theft they have
to watch out for him always, in a
polarized relations in which they sleep
with their wallets under the pillows.
The hurting family fairly at the end of its
tether confronts him with an ultimatum:
To accept treatment or be kicked out.
Tearfully, they watch him leave.
Among the ranks of homeless the junkie
would wake up feeling sick, and spend
the day begging and struggling to find
ways to appease his unbeatable enemy.
At nights, if he’s lucky he’d sleep on friends’
couches; otherwise, the rough sleeper
would have to crash wherever, never
worrying about waking up the next day.
A hellish existence on the streets that has
brought to him a string of run-ins with
the law. Caught stealing on few occasions,
he’s manhandled in most indecent ways.
Broken, sick, and starving; the erstwhile ray
of hope who once had much going for him,
now is a walking nightmare envisaging
life through the lens of opioid stupor.
Far beyond his ability to ask for help,
his loved ones proceed to rescue him.
Under the demeaning load of drug
dependence he staggers into treatment.
Rehab process that would entail a delicate
re-balancing of his brain, whose structure
and function have been adversely affected,
by prolonged use of the toxic substance.
But recovery is by no means an easy task:
It’s a total demand of all that he’s got –
a duty much beyond his ability to cope
in his prevailing state of mental disorder.
In desolate agony with no moments of
peace withdrawals plague him daily.
The life that had been centred on drugs
begins to live in mortal dread of relapse.
Quite unable to justify why he should be
sober, when in such times he’s afflicted
by an awful illness, accompanied by a
serious depression that is of no help.
Utterly irritable with no inner fire left to set
his zeal in motion; mind spinning out of
control; useless is his battle to revive a
willpower whose changeful potency had
For long been enfeebled. In a fit of extreme
anxiety, the raging desire propels him to
the threshold of total insanity. And suddenly,
his need for a ‘hit’ becomes most vital as.
In disgustful desperation unmindful
of future anguish, with a pilfered
smartphone the rehab jumper
hurries along the forbidden path.
Alone with the merciless companion:
Nowhere to go and no one to turn to;
trapped with no good choices –
he fades away into nothingness.
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