Hell and Back

Posted by laurieetta on April 28, 2014 in Being Human | 1 Comment

I can’t get the song, “Hell and Back” by Airborne Toxic Event out of my mind. It is from the movie Dallas Buyer’s Club, where drug use is prevalent. I have never been addicted to drugs, but it seems to me the lyrics describe it well. About 15 years ago I wrote an article on meth and interviewed a former addict. Meth was pretty new at the time (in our area) and it was eye opening and scary. From what I could tell, drugs do take you to hell, but have such a hold on you that even when you get back, you can’t help returning to hell, no matter how much you don’t want to. Perhaps I’m being over-dramatic, so I went to the web to see if I could find how drug addicts would describe being addicted. On bluelight.org, there were these answers to that very question: “What does being addicted feel like?” Here are three:

“its like having an itch your whole life that you just cant ever scratch but its on your nose. so why the hell not. it would feel so good. and it would feel amazing if you just gave it a little scratch, a teensy one. Then you scratch till youre all red and your skins raw. then it starts itching again.”

 “Just imagine the one thing in your life that completes you, makes you feel happy, makes you feel loved, makes you feel totally and unimaginably accepted just how you are. Now, imagine you are told that if you ever touch this thing or person, you will destroy everything else in your life and ultimately yourself.”

“Addiction is like having the solution to all your problems just a phone call/$20 away. And yet this solution is the biggest problem in your life because nothing can ever match it. You simply don’t care about anything else in world.”

I can’t imagine any of these scenarios. Many of the comments were clear that addiction is a complex matter, and I am not here to pass judgment. Only to try to understand. I used to watch the TV show “Intervention” in order to better understand what an addict goes through. We who are not addicted may think, “Why don’t they just stop?” Obviously it is not that easy.

Here is the chorus of Hell and Back, the “you” referring to drugs. Full lyrics can be found at the link below. 

And you took me to hell and back
How many times can I walk away from you
My mind’s like a one way track 
And every one is taking me back to you 
And you tell me just one more time
and you’ll lie like you always do
and I needed just one more lie then there’s nothing that I can do
and I need it just one more time then I swear that I’ll be through
And I know it well 

Being Human connection: It seems any connection I try to make trivializes the hell that drug addiction is.

Full lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/airbornetoxicevent/hellandback.html