The Addiction

Declan: How’s it going, Gene?

Gene: Nice to see you, Declan. I’m doing fine.
Declan: You’re killing yourself, you know.
Gene: I’m well aware of my condition. Thank you for telling me though.
Declan: You used to love life.
Gene: Yeah, I did. You know the strangest part though? I still do, but I can’t stop.
Declan: You should.
Gene: You’re right, I should, but I know I won’t. I like this way of living too, that’s the problem. I know I don’t have as much ability or brain cells as I used to, and I’m not as competent or functional as I was in my heyday, but I’m still ok. Anyway, it’s not as though I have to work anymore. I’m doing fine. I’m feeling not too awful, and I still have plenty of women and buddies coming over so we can have fun every night.
Declan: And it fulfills you?
Gene: I don’t know if it fulfills me, but it works. I guess you could say I’m content, and I sometimes feel that I’m pretty darn important.
Declan: But couldn’t you feel that way without being stoned and drunk all the time?
Gene: No I can’t. I did that I didn’t have anything. I was walking the streets, and thinking about what I could do with the rest of my life. I could have lived with my parents, but I wanted them to enjoy themselves so I lived out on the streets for a long time. Five, six, seven years. There is nothing harder than living on the streets. Those people have great courage and tenacity, and they’re the ones that are considered useless and lazy. I learned that wasn’t true. Some of them are so smart, and some have been through tons, and some just knew they didn’t fit into the real world, or what is considered the real world, so they hit the streets and tried to find meaning and significance from there. You’re looking at me with great confusion, that’s ok. You have been taught to believe that you have to have a house, a vehicle, a job, a family, mow the grass, rake the yard, make dinner, do self-improvement projects around the house, grouse about politics and religion, but some people can’t go in for that sort of stuff. There’s nothing wrong with those things, nothing at all, but you can’t expect everyone to be like you. Some people like I was at the time wanted something more out of this life. If they had to struggle and be hurt for it, so be it. And most of these men and women, even children didn’t beg, they found food, and they found ways to stay alive even when the police and street gangs would kick the crap for nearly thirty years. For those thirty years I had no success, no talent, no friends, no job, no prospects.out of them due to their being homeless. I was beaten senseless plenty of times, but I didn’t care. I was being who I was and there was no reason to apologize or explain myself. That’s the problem today, everyone thinks they have to explain and justify and apologize for every mistake they make. I just said this is the way I am, take it or leave it because if people know me well, which the ones who listen do, they don’t have to hear sorry from me, they know if I have hurt them and made them feel bad, that I am sorry. I have never apologized for my addiction to drugs and alcohol. It’s who I am. These drugs and alcohol get me through the day.
Declan: If you liked the street life so much why did you enter the music industry?
Gene: I didn’t say I loved the street life. I loved the people and their courage but I couldn’t live that way forever. Many of them were great musicians so I asked them if any of them would want to come with me to make it professionally , but they all liked the way their life was going, and I wouldn’t want to change anyone if they’re being who they are. Not many people do that anymore, I think they think they do, but they really don’t. That’s one thing I know about people they usually think they have good intentions and are being nice, but it comes across as arrogance and rudeness to the rest of us. See we’re all so limited and dense in our understanding. We always pretend to know much more than we really do. It’s a universal failing.
Declan: Why aren’t you performing and wriing music anymore?
Gene: I lost the passion. I lost the drive. I had written hundreds of songs, performed at a numberless amount of venues, and I was huge. I was the biggest in the world at one point, and every night as I was out there sining about all I had lost and couldn’t find, and how empty and unfulfilled I felt that I cou;dn’t do it anymore. The people knew that although I had all the money and women in the world, and I would enter the Hall of Fame, I still couldn’t cope with the day-to-day stresses of the real world. This was three years before I retired though, and four years before my addiction began. Remember, I never drank or smoke while I was performing, I didn’t drink or smoke for the first time until I was in my mid-thirties, and here I am now, an unapologetic addict. I wonder how it makes you feel. Have you ever had addictions.
Declan: Of course. I’ve had several. I still do but they’re not killing me.
Gene: They may be killing you more than you think. An addiction is anything we can’t puit away because we’re too afraid to live without it, or that’s what I heard. As an addict I have never figured out what addiction really is. They talk about it filling holes in our lives, or taking them to make us feel more peaceful and resolute, and those things are somewhat true, but most of those people have never had an addiction like mine in their life and they’re just blowing hot air.
Declan: But maybe they are right. You said yourself you don’t know what caused your addiction. You don’t even know what addiction is or what it’s good for, and yet you continue to put those substances into yourself until you’ll be gone. I have to believe you have some idea of why you do it, of why you’re so lonely and lost.
Gene: If I did I would tell you. I can’t tell you why I do these things, but I’m not unhappy.
Declan: Ok you’re not unhappy but what about all the people around you? Maybe they’re unhappy, maybe you’re weakening them day by day.
Gene: If they were, they would tell me. My friends and I have very close, open relationships, something the unaddicted and responsible have no idea about. They can’t even talk about something as dark and dangerous as addiction and a crutch. But they know nothing about it, so why do they inisitin talking about it? They need someone to judge and to detract the attention from themselves, I suppose. It’s ok, I really don’t harbor them any grudges, they think what they’re doing is helpful and maybe they’re right, but I’m not going to quit because people that care about me want me to, because if they did they would tell me.
Declan: Maybe they’re waiting for you to come to the conclusion that your addiction isn’t helping anyone. You know this will kill you, and how will they cope when you’re gone?
Gene: I’ve thought about that. I’m one guy, just one person. They all have tons of friends, most of them are better friends than I am, they can find happiness and hope in them. They don’t need me to survive, and there won’t be many tears when I die, because I haven’t touched that many people. I sang and performed music for a few years. Some of it was wildly popular and successful, but most of it was self-indulgent, whiny garbage which the critics and listeners said for years. Eventually I just started writing music that had no rhyme or reason to it. Since none of it made any sense they all began looking for secret meanings in my songs, as though I were a deep-thinking modern-day Messiah of sorts. I was flattered but all it was, was pointless gibberish I wrote down one day because all of my realistic and soul-searching songs which were about real hurt and loneliness were panned and ridiculed for years. I knew if I sang about things that had no true meaning, people would think I was a tortured genius. I was never a genius .Always tortured. I don’t know what I was tortured about, but it doesn’t really matter now, does it? You came here for what exactly? We’ve never been friends, we’ve never spoken for more than a few minutes over the last dozen years. Why are you coming now?
Declan: I think it’s your time. I’ve never been there for you over the last dozen years, you’re right. I was never a good brother, I didn’t realize that until I saw the news story where it detailed your decline. I couldn’t believe I had cut you out of my life after you were on the streets, as though where you lived made you any less of a person, or any less important. I was awful. I was a total egotistical snob who deserves… well, decide for yourself. But I can’t see you destroy yourself any more, we need to end this right now.
Gene: Do you want to pull the trigger, or should I do it?
Declan: No, don’t talk like that. WEhen I said it was your time, I meant it’s time for you to enter rehab or to do anything it takes to get you off the drugs and booze.
Gene: I appreciate the thought, but it’s not a good idea. This is the closest I can come to happiness, you have to realize that. I like my life and I like myself as much as I’m ever going to. Is it perfect? Am I a great person? Am I doing anything to benefit society? No but it’s who I am, and I have to be who I am until I am certain who I am is just not good enough.
Declan: You’re right I don’t understand anything you’re going through, or what makes you do what you do. But you have great talent, yeah, but that’s not the most important thing, you’re a great person, there is greatness and kindness and awesome ability within you, you deserve to feel better, and I as well as others are going to help you feel better and get out of your dark world of addiction.
Gene: I’m hearing you loud and clear, but…..
Declan: Just give it a shot, please. You deserve better and all your friends and family want you to be around for a long time.
Gene: You know what? Ok. I’ll give it a shot, but don’t assume things, don’t assume I can just quit and be who you want me to be, still let me be who I am but try to let me be who I am without the drugs, I will try to quit the drugs, I may even return to performing again. Ok. I’ll give it a shot. I really will, but be patient and be as understanding as you can be.
Declan: Hey I’ll give it my all, if you’ll give it yours.
Gene: Ok. Well where do we go from here?
Declan: One second. Come in guys
(All of Gene’s family and friends enter.)
(End.)