you have to deal with it for an unknown amount of time.  i can count on one hand the number of people i know who don’t struggle with their primary addiction.  that doesn’t mean that they practice it – many haven’t for years.  but i can’t tell you how many women in recovery i know who fret over how their body looks or worry about what to eat at a meal or wonder if they’ve gained weight.  i can name people who long to just start doing meth again or say that the desire to drink is seeping from their pores.

addiction isn’t just there when it’s convenient.  it’s not just “oh, i’m going to do this – i might get addicted but it’s okay – i’ll just get better and move on.” um, no, you’re not that special.  people struggle with addictions, go to treatment for it, get better, and still struggle with it for ever.  sometimes they struggle and they die.  sometimes they struggle and stay alive.  sometimes they struggle and stop struggling because they’re wallowing in the ill effects of their addiction (think terri schiavo, who is a completely different post in and of itself).

it ain’t pretty.  addiction isn’t pretty.  and the beauty of addiction is that you don’t get to decide how long it’s there.  sure, you can stop the behavior, but how can you just make it stop affecting you?  if you could just stop it, you would’ve done it before – the fact that you had an addiction shows that you couldn’t stop to begin with.