Imagine for a moment, that you never really felt comfortable with who you are. It could be because you failed at everything you tried, or because you were never satisfied with the level of success you did achieve. It could be because you had thoughts and emotions that made you feel different from other people, particularly if you felt you weren’t as good or as lovable as others. Or perhaps you were actually told, or shown, that you were no good, worthless, or that you existed just to meet other people’s needs.
None of the things that the people around you felt good about felt good to you, either because you were denied them, or because the experience was hollow and unsatisfying in some way.
Then imagine you have an experience –- you drink, take a drug, win a bet or a game, have a sexual experience, overeat, or buy something for yourself, and suddenly, everything feels great. You feel as if success is easy and right for you, that perhaps others don’t understand, but now it feels good to be alive. There is finally something you can depend on to feel OK.
It might be easy to get what feels good –- for a food addict, a quick trip to the corner store and a few dollars can replenish your M&M supplies -- or it might be difficult, for a heroin addict costing a lot of cash, significant risks, and interaction with people you can’t trust. But compared to the emptiness of what you felt before, investing in the chance that you could again feel good about yourself and about being alive is what matters.
Sure, other people don’t understand. But that just makes you want to spend time with people who do understand, whose addictions make them feel exactly the way you do. You don’t even need to talk about it with them –- between you, there is already an understanding. So now you don’t feel like an outsider, you feel like an insider, a member of a secret club.
Of course, there is