The other day In These Rooms I heard a man say in introducing himself “…I’m a real alcoholic…” I was immediately reminded of the line from the tale Snow White “…Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?” In These Rooms, it’s more like “…who’s the most fucked up of us all…” Or, as someone said of these rooms, this is the land of all the broken and misfit toys. But what the hell is A Real Addict anyway? And what the hell is up with this damn One-upmanshit (the technique or practice of gaining a feeling of superiority over another person). I thought no one is In These Rooms because their ass was on a damn winning streak?
The fucking craziness of this One-upmanshit reminded me of when I was part of a homeless church ministry that developed affordable housing to get people off the street. I noticed as part of this work there seemed to be tension between people who were still on the street and those who had were now living in the affordable units we built—they had little or no communication. I inquired of one of the team what this apparent tension was about. He explained to me that, as a norm, the people who are living in the units don’t communicate or associate with people on the street because they look down on them; the housed group feels they are now better than those still on the street (BTW, the people on the street don’t communicate or associate with people in the units because they see them as sellouts. Hmmmm).
“…Here’s the funny thing about that One-upmanshit. If you’re In These Rooms, you’re here because you’re on a crawl back journey from hell, like I was, and your ass is falling off, who in the hell has the damn time to be looking down on any fucking body else? There are no atheists in the foxhole as the saying goes. Seems to me, if your ass is on fire, your fucking concern ought to be on putting your own damn fire out not focusing on the size of mine. Just saying…”
Yalie
“…We are all fallen, flawed and fallible. We all have our demons. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. Most of us sit down to shit and we all have gangster proclivities. No one is better than anyone else for everybody has some shit going on and the ground is level at the foot of the cross. We are all trying to get home the best fucking way we know how…”
Hunter
“…From where I sit, we’re all Real Addicts if our focus is on other-inflicted wounds and not our self-inflicted wounds. My community ain’t In These Rooms but it’s a community of Real Addicts. We are addicted to the same old scripts and storylines of playing the victim and carrying the baggage of American victimization…”
X
Well said X. Well said. Playing the Real Addict is the lived truth for many of us. Maybe Snow White was onto something. Maybe this life thing is about who’s the most fucked up of us all. A Real Addict.
Read more about Yalie, X and Hunter and tell your story. Listen to Hunter’s Podcast. All on wreckedamerica.com. In Wrecked America, #RealAddictsMatter
The Struggle Continues….
