You are not “you”. You inhabit a body, but your mouth does not form words, your mind does not think coherent thoughts. You are not there. You are a zombie, all primitive impulse.
And of course addicts willingly drink from the River Lethe. Something is bouncing around them that stops for a time when they drink that water, that both anesthetizes their minds, detaches them from reality, and makes the pain fade away.
But they are zombies. If you wake them from a comatose sleep, they are of no use to anyone.
For myself, my abuse of alcohol is slowly fading. I am going more and more days not just not drinking, but not wanting it, and more and more days drinking a little, but not a lot.
I don’t want to be a zombie. I want to be there for my life.
That pain was very real. I understand it intimately. It is hard to communicate the gut level nausea and unreality that attends connecting with an energy in which a caregiver willfully hurt you. That is not supposed to happen. But of course it does, regrettably often.
And we the wreckage are left to learn. This is painful, but also beautiful.