Dependency isn’t a lack of light. It isn’t darkness itself. It is the opposite. It is the sun.

It’s standard to think that somebody with a dependency on drink lacks something: confidence; direction; ambition; responsibility; hope; self-control; a cheery disposition; a can-do attitude.

The actual situation is that they have something. They have something that has more power and more energy than most of us have ever experienced.

Dependency isn’t a lack of light. It isn’t darkness itself. It is the opposite. It is the sun.

Like the sun, it is a force that nothing seems able to reckon with. It blinds you if you try to examine it for any amount of time. It burns you if you try to get too close.

Sometimes, especially in the early days, when the person with the dependancy chooses to shine that light on you it can warm you. It can thrill you. It can leave you feeling as equally intoxicated.

It shames you that some of your Best. Times. Ever. were spent basking in that light that at the time felt joyous, not dangerous.

Suddenly, you realise it has gone too far, but by then it feels too late. There was no big bang, no identifiable tipping point, but after looking to the sun one too many times the afflicted are dazzled to a point they can no longer see.

They can only feel their way towards the next drink.

For the person afflicted, life outside of those small, lonely pools of bright light ceases to exist.

For everyone else they are left spinning in circles, unable to pull free  of the force of the huge, burning ball of flames that has slowly and stealthily made slaves of us all.