Everyone has, at one point or another in their life, heard this expression. He/She/They fell off the wagon. Everyone’s heard of it, and some have even lived it. Falling off the wagon is usually used in reference to someone relapsing in an addiction. It is usually, in my experiences, used in a negative connotation towards the addict. “Oh, yeah, he fell off the wagon and went to the bar.” You can usually hear the disdain in their voice, bordering on disgust, when in actuality, it’s a misunderstanding or the inability to understand what the addict is going through. Addiction is not viewed as what it really is, a mental and physical illness. Sure it never starts that way, it’s almost always a conscious choice to partake in a substance or an activity that can become an addiction. However, once the pleasure sets in, and your body craves it to the point where you cannot function without it, it’s no longer a choice, it is an illness. Especially when someone wants to quit, but cannot succeed with willpower alone.

So I don’t like the “falling off the wagon” analogy for the context in which it is most commonly used. But it really does fit the bill on what it feels like trying to quit an addiction. What they don’t say, is that the wagon is going down a mountain at 100 miles an hour, in the pouring rain, right at a tornado. So falling off the wagon is not really as easy as some people like to believe it is. You’re clinging to this wagon for dear life, and when the stress gets to be too much, you’re thrown off, and are about to face plant into the hard ground, when you use what you know to soften the impact. This is usually whatever you’re addicted to, because falling off the wagon really only happens when you can’t hold on anymore. It’s not like you think to yourself, “Welp, I gave it my best gosh darned try, but I just love alcohol too much to keep trying to give it up.” It’s more like everything in life is coming crashing down on you, and the only key to activate your “airbags” is a stiff drink. The momentary damages you might suffer, are worth the protection you receive from the greater dangers. But this too, is just a rationalization. Because in truth, it’s a riptide hidden just below the surface, that will sweep you out to sea without any warning. Suddenly, what you were using for protection has become the greater danger than what you were using it to protect you from.

Some of you may know my story, if not, well, I’ve fallen off various wagons more times than I’d like to count. A lot in my life has changed, but a lot has also stayed the same. And so, I still have a vice or two that I turn to when times get tough. But I know that it is my protectors that I should fear, and not my life circumstances. Because my stress relievers will kill me far quicker than my current stressors. Once I realized this, I understood that a portion of the fear that I felt, was actually fear of coming to this realization. Admitting that I was losing control to something that I would use to make me feel better. Now I would use it so that I don’t feel worse. All the while, staring at my killer in the bottom of a bottle that would whisper sweet nothings in my ear. And most people would give in to the siren’s song after having failed to stay on the wagon, two, ten, fifty, a hundred times. But it’s a mantra of mine, that falling off the wagon is not something to be lamented. It is not picking yourself up and chasing after the wagon that is the worse fate. Why would someone who has had absolutely no success in quitting something, still trying to quit so desperately? Because I know that this is barely a band aid, a crutch, and that continuing to run away and hide in a bottle instead of facing my demons and trying to change my life, will only result in an early grave. Probably the most prolofic reason as to why I constantly partook in this behavior without a seconds’ thought. However, there was always the acknowledgement that this couldn’t last forever, hell, barely a decade more before I fall apart at my pace. It is this fact, and my newfound desire to live, that drives me to continue to chase after the wagon. All with the hopes that eventually I can strengthen my grip enough to not be tossed from the wagon at the slightest inconvenience. It is a ticking time bomb that I must defuse. There is plenty of room for mistakes, but failure is not an option