Colder

Sweet sips slip down my eager throat,

Saccharine cruelty,

Unquenched longing for your cold taste.

You call to me,

Seductive as a siren

Whose polished face crumbles to dust.

I want to be filled up by you,

Every crack glossed over,

Every rough edge smoothed.

But why does a glut of you still leave me hollow?

When I sit by your fire I am

Colder.

I wrote this to describe what addiction feels like to me and I wonder if you recognise that

feeling? The longing, the craving, the need to be filled up by something.

I think many of us who find ourselves in a cycle of addiction are coming from a place of lack,

of emptiness. We are looking outside ourselves to fill a void within. To sooth and smooth

over an anxious and fractured mind. It might seem like a quick fix, a comfort or an escape

from our reality but actually reaching for our drug of choice serves to further exacerbate the

problem. We end up feeling worse, time and time again.

Being stuck in a cycle of addiction can look and feel a little like this:

Awareness and recognition of this cycle is an important first step towards recovery.

Examining our internal landscape and learning to recognise and respond differently to our

emotional needs leaves us in a really strong position to challenge cravings. Through getting

to know ourselves better and learning to better self-regulate when we face difficult

emotions and situations, we create a much stronger vantage point from which to assess and

get rid of behaviours that no longer serve us.