Chapter Text
I was studying addictions.
Balanced in my lap was a library book, along with a crinkled pamphlet, titled Understanding One’s Addiction. Which I had obtained last week, after one seriously awkward conversation, from a local church that held Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Given my extreme apprehension at any kind of drug use, I had never thought I’d find myself in such a place… yet here I was. My life in ruins, just like how school assemblies said it'd be.
The first step is identifying and admitting your problem. If you or a loved one is currently struggling with substance use, said the pamphlet, green text clashing garishly against yellow background, consider the following signs:
The person is experiencing difficulty or inability to stop using.
I knew I did—I had done this exercise with myself many times before—but once again, as a mental checkbox, I made myself stop. I did it to demonstrate to myself the difficulty in doing so, while also reassuring myself that I could still do it at all. My chest tightened, and the bench became uncomfortable, metal corners digging through my pants into the back of my thighs. My breathing quickened and I started fixating on it. My legs bounced the book, knees knocking against the hard-cover. Gritting my teeth, I kept reading.
The person is experiencing withdrawal symptoms, emotional or physical, after they stop using.
Without it, I felt boxed-in, powerless. The room was too small. My gaze darted around the walls. I couldn’t slow my breathing. My dilemma seemed irrational. If I could make this go away, whenever I wanted, then why shouldn’t I? It's not like I wasn't in control. I was repeatedly choosing to do the reasonable thing. The possibility of withdrawal symptoms was returned to the ‘maybe’ pile.
The person is preoccupied with the substance or activity, even when not partaking in it.
I frowned. These days, I had done it so often that it had become a reflexive reaction to anything undesirable that welled up inside me. That sounded… really bad, to the point that if someone had heard me think that about cocaine or something, they’d chuck me straight into rehab. But on second thought, maybe it wasn't. If it was as unconscious as blinking, or swinging my arms when I walked, how could it really interfere with my life?
The person experiences problems with their health and their social relationships.
Assuming there was ever a social life to ruin anyway, I thought, wryly. I guess one could say it did worsen my “relationships”: it’s just that those were all antagonistic in the first place. Aside from my dad. And, all of a sudden, remembering our supervised phone conversation yesterday morning, I felt so acutely awful that I physically recoiled into myself, the emotion spasming across my face. Now it was so much harder to hide things like these, the way others did. Out of practice, I was an open book without my power. And unless health problems included bruises, cuts, rope-burn, and a sprained wrist, then in spite of my worries, it really didn’t seem like my problems fit sensibly into what I thought an addict's looked like. But whatever my problems were, they had led me here: into the throes of this brand new, much bigger problem.
I got to the one on the list that I had been thinking about for the past few days.
The person’s tolerance increases, making more of the substance or activity necessary to get the same feeling.
When I was first getting used to my power, my rage, fear, panic, came to heel obediently when summoned. It was only recently I had begun to notice how that had changed. My emotions didn't feel like an inherent part of me anymore. I hadn’t considered the possibility that I could be messing with them permanently, but it seemed obvious in hindsight. What was I feeling now? It was something I felt like I had to purge, a messy, unidentifiable sense of wrongness, like a black sludge leaking out of my head. I didn’t know what it was, just felt the instinctive need to get rid of it.
I tried to focus on what I was feeling. Normal people would be feeling scared in this current situation. I remembered it now. This is fear. Don’t forget that this is fear. I struggled to hold on to it; I wanted to let go of it so badly. Maybe an hour a day banning myself from my power... emotional exercise, on top of the cardio.
But most of the time, I reminded myself, when I let go of those feelings, I was calm, and perfectly normal. Unperturbed and focused. So it couldn’t be that bad. Right?
So why couldn’t I shake the sense that I had some sort of problem? That at some point, I had started to mess everything up?
A voice outside my holding cell, and the rough sliding of a metal door, broke me out of my thoughts. I recognized him as one of the PRT guys that had escorted me inside. “Get up,” he said, looking severe. “You’re coming with me.”
~ ~ ~
“You present, let’s call them, interesting concerns,” said—I looked at her name plate—Director Emily Piggot, with a look that communicated clearly that interesting meant very bad, and you're in big trouble. “What we generally do, and what we’ve done in the past, is to attempt to induct problematic underage capes as probationary members of the Wards. Get them the support they need to use their powers for good. Now, unlike most members of that group, our field reports corroborate yesterday’s psych eval deeming you—" she glanced down at a paper on her desk and raised her eyebrows as if in suspicion— "cooperative with the PRT and in full control of your facilities. Cooperative in a way completely incongruous with your recent conduct. Raiding a warehouse unprovoked. Bites, poisoning, suffocation, infections, eye damage, respiratory damage! Serious medical intervention required on several of your targets! Resisting Protectorate intervention! A few more weeks in the streets and you'll be sending us body bags and grieving widows, do you understand?”
She took a few measured breaths and continued, more quietly. “Now, some people here, including the capes that brought you in, have seen fit to disagree with me, and believe that there extenuating circumstances at play. Which is why I'm even talking with you now. But it seems to me that everything you've done, you've been fully aware of the consequences. Which means, that I am forced to conclude, that you are choosing of your own free will to hurt people more than necessary. You understand that this might be a problem for a hero.”
She stopped talking and looked at me expectantly. She hadn’t asked me a question, but I assumed she wanted me to explain myself.
“Um,” I began, shrinking in my seat and looking down at my shaking hands. With my anxiety unsuppressed, I felt exposed; unmasked in both the literal and figurative sense. Like a cockroach from a light, I cringed away from her reproachful gaze. They didn’t understand my situation, how my powers worked, but I didn’t know how to explain it to them. “I. Right. I understand that. And I—I really am sorry. I know it’s not helpful for you guys that I keep messing up. I think I didn’t even really understand why myself until recently, but…” I hesitated, unsure whether it was right to say it but already having made the decision of starting to say it.
“But?”
I exhaled, shakily. “I think I might have an addiction.”