This is a monologue that I wrote and performed for a piece of community based theatre I was part of in 2023. The performance was centred around the theme of addiction.

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Welcome to this week’s class of Social Education, today we’ll be looking at Substance Abuse…

Now I know you may think that substance abuse is some glamorous party with a tragic poetic fall. A party that goes on and on and on. One that even as all of your friends fall away, you still find joyful, manic glee in. A safe solace away from it all. No harm ever to come your way…?

I hate to break the spell of Tumblr esq dreams but in reality it’s a slow decay, in which you watch all of your hopes and dreams slip away.

It might start with you doing it alone or with friends but in the end it doesn’t matter, you’re hooked on the feeling. And the feeling helps you “cope”.

You might like how it makes you feel more confident and open, in the moment might I add, or how it helps you dissociate and forget.

But in the end it all leads to the same place.

A place of disarray and self-decay. A place where you stop caring about what you look like, whether you smell or not, where you cut everyone and everything off.

A place where it’s just you and the drug of your choice.

All alone.

Let that sink in.