Us

While reading a confessional piece in the Times, UK in which the writer blames alcohol for ... umm, liquidating her mother, I wondered whether it's the vice that ought to be blamed for destroying the person or the person who should take responsiblity for letting it do it to her. The way I see it, the vice is just a device in the hands of the abuser who is allowing it to overcome her.

I've smoked a lot - and when I say a lot, I mean a lot - of drugs in my not-so-long life. From past experience, I can say that blaming the drugs is just another symptom of the foible that pushes people like me towards the substance and abuse. It's not the drugs, the liquor and the like that destroy you. It's you who let these things take charge of you.

I believe it's important to draw this distinction because saying 'Alcohol consumed so-so' or 'Drugs ruined my life' is avoiding taking responsibility for what you have essentially sourced, rolled or poured and then ingested, inhaled or ... well, consumed.

As someone who has spent a fair number of years earning a living crafting appropriate words to sell ideas of different kinds, I would argue that confessional writing - the purpose of which is often to help other people in similar situations benefit from it - might serve its brief better if it addressed this matter with a lesser degree of compassion.

If I were to ever get around to writing a book on the different things a drug addict goes through, I'd write it in the words of the drug and adopt a condescending tone of voice in which the substance mocks the devitalised abuser for her vice. Hmm ... now there's another idea someone with a little more skill and discipline might be tempted to do something with.

All that said and done, this round of introspection has been most humbling. It has dawned on me just how impuissant I must have been. How could I have sunk so low? Boy, this is most depressing. I need a toke.