Now I dove into the ocean of research, and what I found was profound.   The odds are that most people, from a young age, can become addicts.  But there is also a set of people, who are called outliers and break the cycle, who do not become another face in a statistic.

When I think of the outliers in this context, a lyric from Globus Hystericus by the Agonist, a song that has resonated with me for years plays in my head. These lyrics encompass strength and the lack of privilege to have eyes of the ignorant, the eyes that face the reality of cause and effect and see each movement they make as a right turn to the left turns that have been so placed in front of them. And yes, taking these left turns would have been so easy. Follow the line. One who dares to walk the road less traveled will find they are their own company.

“What does the tree say to his friend the rock? When he lives and breathes, and they sit and mock and he grows strong for centuries long. But finally dies and begins to rot. ‘We will last intact this way! And you my friend, my friend you will soon decay’ ‘But I can breathe-am commensal. The shade, the fruits, the nest on bough, and if my life finite, I'm glad to have spent it right’ But rocks prefer to simply sit, to win none, lose none, just exist, but nary should an ocean rise, they'd disappear with the tides, when trees ignite a cyclical life from plant to Earth and back, whom, even when their roots are plowed, have  left exponential impact.”

Something that fascinates me is that when a tree is sick, the tree next to it can become sick. The saying “addiction is a family disease” reminds me of how trees share a root system. Why is it a family disease? Is it just a behavior that was passed down? But I remember that my friend told me that “addiction is the symptom of internal turmoil.”

Okay, so behavior is passed down. I toss that theory out. It coins the saying from the roles different family members take on in the dynamic. But I want to understand how if one can see the destruction it causes, why would they themselves repeat it? Addiction is the result of not wanting to feel. There's a feeling a person doesn't want. Well, a pill, a powder, a liquid, can “remove” it. Or perhaps if they want to feel something they “can't”, the medium can get them that feeling quick. The neglect a child growing up experiences from a family member can have lasting effects, and there's a risk of repeating the behavior if the emotions aren’t addressed.

Now let's talk about the outliers, the ones who see the writing on the wall, who accept the razor blade edge they have been given to walk in this life, Another set of lyrics by the Agonist play in my head: “The future is so much longer than the past, I picked up wrongs along the way, removed from the mass, but, I still had to jettison things to outrun gravity.”

The outlier doesn't see addiction as this monster that only preys on certain people, addiction is a symptom of internal turmoil, and the reality is, every person who breathes, will face turmoil in their life. But the person who addresses it rather than ignore it, well that person reduces the risk of addiction becoming their life.  Self-Reflection in Zen Buddha has a sentence that reads: “When we become too tolerant towards ourselves, we tend to overlook our faults, and when we overlook our faults, we cannot purify ourselves and make any progress on the path.”

Now how did I come to this conclusion? When I had went to that meeting with my friend, I met career people, financially successful.  The ones that stood out to me were the ones who later in life become addicts. My heart sunk to the floor; I had always had this fixed idea that I wasn't aware of until this moment. I had thought addiction happens from an early age, that once someone makes it past their mid 20s, they beat that hourglass. How wrong I was, and being wrong, opened my eyes to something bigger.

Choices. Choices are what separates one from this life of addiction. The one who became an addict was once a person without an addiction, who in a moment of wanting to feel comfortable began a life crashing amongst the waves of addiction. What I choose to take from this, is that I and anyone could become this person if the choices made aligned with the actions that lead to addiction. Addressing the internal turmoil rather than burying it with a substance is where prevention starts. To the addicts who shared their story with me, I'd like to thank you.