The Addictive Thinking Bridge

A writer in a blog on an online recovery site says, “What is addictive thinking? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. It is the bridge that allows us to deny what we intellectually know to be true and allows us to continue to engage in addictive substance use.”

I deserve it, you know.
How could anybody keep on
day after day after day after day –
especially days like these, drama days
with exhilarating highs slammed down
by hellish nosedives, impossible to break.
It’s not as though I’m so hopeless
I have to toe the mark, goose-step in line,
a lemming. You don’t know what it’s like
to be me. You may need all that rigamarole,
but I’ve got strength you’ll never have.
Besides, I’m not hurting you or anybody else.
Well, yeah, it might hurt me, but what do you care?

So, what if it does hurt me? Maybe it does,
I guess, but who cares? Why? Why would you care?
That’s so sweet. So, I’m not hurting anybody
if I bend the rules, or is that not true either?
Okay. I deserve recovery. Really, I do.
As long as it feels this good, day-after-day
after-day would feel pretty darned good.
Maybe it would really help in this drama,
wouldn’t make me feel any better, or anything
different except stuffed, bummed out,
asleep on the couch. But it really might
hurt me. So Sponsor, I’ll quit these crazy thoughts.
I’ll recover for today.