My Addictions: A Contemplation
By: Christopher Davis
Tags: Addiction, Party, Deep Thoughts, Creative Writing, Youth

My Addictions: A Contemplation

Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash

My first ever addiction presents itself in the morning. Most mornings I need a fix. I need to welcome the warm heat easing the joint in my elbow, stretching my left calf and clearing my throat. It blinks my pupils into the shadow of my room and walks me down the stairs. I’m addicted to that. Uttering the words good-morning to the people that surround me feels blocked up by my tongue, dry from the night. Although often the first sound I hear is the breath of the kettle, like a sigh, only it gets louder and angrier. The vessel I use determines whether my day will be worthwhile. It’s terrible, funny even, that such a small thing impacts me so. But I must take one of the blue-chipped china mugs that live near the bowls. Only they can hold my rich addiction.

Black, is how I take it. Initially for the clout, but like most other addictions, it grew on me and now I’m hooked. I love the slight sizzle of my morning addiction, when the heat first meets it, turning the colour deep. I love seeing how much the mug can handle, before the water spills over. I love the burn of it in my hand. I know that my addiction is bad and that I should stop and that I shouldn’t need to seek a fix most mornings. I should wake, rise and be ready for the world without it. But sometimes I wonder whether my addiction controls me.

My addiction is also in school. It’s in the work I am given, forced down my throat. It’s in the grades that I gain and the tutors that I see. This addiction is dangerous. It can be one of those gateway ones that they teach you in class. That you must never try it or you’ll be hooked. I find it ironic that my addiction is in their own work that they give me. It leads to more hardcore addictions like being addicted to stress, fatigue and the feeling of being burnt-out. My addiction is fueled by the work, by the competition, by the rewards of taking in more and more until my head becomes cloudy with study. Sometimes I live and breathe this addiction, like in the moments that I am tested on my work. I see figures in the water I drink, the computer screen I read and the pen that writes by itself. I see it in the very bruises on my palm left by that pen. Like I said, my addiction in this form is dangerous.

Some days it’s in my friends and I can see it’s pull when we see each other. They invite me to their parties, their houses, and their rooms, to their thoughts, their secrets and their feelings. In this form, my addiction only grows stronger. They feed me it of course, at lunchtimes, and it walks me to them every school day, the same friends. Doesn’t it ever get boring? Tasteless? No, because my addiction knows what I like, who I like and it gives me them.

My addiction hands me these people on a cream plate, maybe as a distraction from other addictions, but these people help define who I am, they try to ensure that my addictions never reach the limit, my limit, and they bring me entertainment and a sense of worth too. In this form, I am grateful to my addiction. I am nearly always happy to take it, to take their company, their kind words and their witty comments too. But I ask myself again, does my addiction control me? They all dominated me once, my addictions.

There was a frost on the lawn, the sullen morning broke and my fingers shook for the need of my morning fix. I brewed it, fueling me my first addiction and I began my study. I had woken early so that I could finish schoolwork and savour the stress of the last-minute timing. The bus arrived and I packed up and when I braced my shoulder to open the classroom door of my morning lesson, I felt my second addiction reach its peak. By the end of the day, I had given back swollen workbooks filled with cobalt pen and glued articles. I had ached for that feeling and had received it. But suddenly I was home again, getting dressed up for a thrilling night, and when I opened the door to my third addiction, I knew the night had only just begun.

My friends had changed the lightbulb in the living room to red which propelled the passionate vibrations when it coupled with the resonating, thick bassline coming from unseen speakers. My friends, my addiction, reached out to me and welcomed me into their tribal trance. There were bottomless cups strewn across chairs, tabletops and the carpeted floor. Before I arrived, I had taken more of my morning fix and I could still feel it in me, in the silent roar of my veins. Someone turned the music up even higher, for their favourite song maybe. Hair was played with, fingers touched and the bass dropped. I felt a sense of euphoria for the first time. A drink was handed to me, another addiction crawling out. It was hot, sticky, loud, dark. My thighs ached. Somebody else turned on an LED light that rotated to the sound of the song. It blinded me green, pink, and blue. But red still filled my vision, faces were red, clothes red, drinks red, my mind red. I staggered through a hallway, reached a bathroom and slammed the interior door into its frame.

When I entered that room the overwhelming sound and light blacked out. I could still hear faint shouts and singing through the vibrating hinges, but for the most part I remember feeling alone. I had left all of my addictions outside that door, including the new ones that I had been introduced to moments ago. My fingers flicked at a switch and a fluorescent bulb stirred to life. It was the heaviest sound in the room, the deep hum of the gas inside. Still standing, I reached the sink and saw a hollowed-out figure staring back at me on the crystal wall. Is that what my addictions had turned me into? Did they have that much control over me?

That was the time both my friends and I took my addictions past the limit, my limit. My addictions had all dominated me, controlled me. The morning fix, the day of satisfying my school and then my addiction to friends had all been too much. What would it take to rehabilitate me out of these addictions? Out of being tied to only these feelings? That’s a question for when I am much older. A question I need to ask myself when I have even more addictions to worry about. I shouldn’t ask myself this question now anyway, for I can hear the boiled kettle click, making my first ever addiction known to the world.