An Addicts Poem: A selection of poems written through addiction and recovery.

Product Information

My power is awesome; try me you'll see, but if you do, you may NEVER break free. Just try me once and I might let you go, but try me twice, and I'll own your soul. When I possess you, you'll steal and you'll lie. You do what you have to just to get high. The crimes you'll commit, for my narcotic charms will be worth the pleasure you'll feel in your arms. If you have any honour, I’ll strip it away, You’ll lose all your hope and forget how to pray, I’ll leave you in darkness, while blindly you stare, I’ll reduce you to nothing and won’t even care. Together, we'll continue to remember [Deceased's Name] as a kind, loving, and selfless person, and not let his struggles with addiction define his memory.

Since learning the different FA ways of coping and reacting to my son , I now simply say things like Narrow minded uproars about the spread of AIDS, nonsense! The puritanical onslaught of those who want nothing more than the rest of us, love. "Gay", "****", "******", "queer", how about "kind", "funny", "genuine human being"? The right to be married and divorced should be an option for everyone to enjoy. The strains and hardships of matrimony are yours if you want them. If you don’t agree don’t hate or harm just allow them to be peacefully. Same goes for anything for that matter, Jehovah's going door to door, Mormons from Burbank. New ideas are never a bad thing, they’re not a waste of time. On average you have about eighty years to mull over your options.addiction * is letting your *highs carry you throughout the night because it's the only way you'll be able to greet the day and then allow your lows to drag you through it I've lost count of the number of heartfelt letters I sent my son, as well as the many times I tried to talk to him. There is evidence to suggest that emotional tears contain additional proteins and hormones that have relaxing or pain-relieving effects that help regulate the body and help it return to its normal state! Neil Steinberg: That’s one thing I’m hoping this book does, and I didn’t really think about it until I finished. The purpose of it was to use poetry to help people in rehab, or help people with addictions. But when I was done I was kind of hoping it would use addictions to lure people into poetry as well. Because I do think poetry really embroiders your world. It’s true for alcoholics and drug addicts, but it’s true for everybody; we want to lead a significant life. Poetry, as much as it’s ignored and reviled by the general public, is a tremendous way to give your life depth and richness and significance that it would not otherwise have, at least for me. So I’m hoping that this will cause people to realize that all this stuff is there, and all you have to do is pull it down and start to read it. You know who I am, you’ve called me your friend, Wishes of misery and heartache I send, I want only to see that you’re brought to your knees, I’m the devil inside you, I am your disease.

Bright, insightful millennials freezing in search of warmth from something to believe in that will encourage them to look forward to see another day. Curtis Fox: That was “Frying Trout while Drunk” by Lynn Emanuel which is also collected in her book, Hotel Fiesta. So Neil, what do the details, the very vivid details in this poem, reveal to you about the speaker?

He knows what he does and who he is wrong. He recites and regurgitates excuses endlessly. He cries because he knows he is weak, he knows he must fix himself. I sit on the edge of myself with my fingers crossed hoping maybe, maybe he will set himself straight. Not easy! In fact, negotiating this nightmare has been the hardest thing I have ever done. It takes daily practice of letting go, and accepting that I cannot change anyone else, addicted or not, but I can change me, and the way I deal with it all. Selling addiction and dependency legally to kids. Making heroine, ******* and speed easily obtainable to them. Changing the names and giving out prescriptions so the parents can feel like they're actually helping their children but are subconsciously making it easier on themselves because they cannot handle the way their offsprings actually are. Some parents a feel it is the only way, I wish it wasn't so. Becoming zombies, mindless addicts before they even start to mature into puberty. I've seen it, firsthand front row. We must remember the good moments we shared with [Deceased's Name]. The summers spent fishing by the lake, the family barbecues, and the laughter that filled our homes.

I would also say, following on from Gloria's post, that many of us have "that gnawing fear in your heart". Will it ever go? Who knows. I don't want to dwell on that really. What's the point I ask. I guess what's more relevant is how do I cope with that feeling? For me it is another thing that I have to accept and let go of. This is where a faith in whatever you perceive your Higher Power to be comes in. Every day I am letting go of something I cannot change. We say at every meeting, in the HELPING reading, that we will change our fear to faith. ( A copy of that powerful reading is on the Board index above). Neil Steinberg: Exactly, it’s profound the way he says it. It’s funny, the oddest moment — Sometimes when I mention the book to people and they don’t know any better they’ll say, “Oh, so it’s your poetry then”. And I just sort of startle and say, “No, I would never write poetry! Poetry’s the hardest thing in the world!”. It really is. One poem in the book by Langston Hughs, “Wave of sorrow, / do not drown me now: / I see the island / still ahead somehow. / I see the island / And its sands are fair: / Wave of sorrow, / take me there”. That’s 30 words! addiction is skin clinging to bones like a baby to its mother....but its only ever perceived as beautifulBaby my life is full of scars in my brain from smoking shards everyday getting harder everyday trying to barter everyday just to send you messages everyday in any way that I can.