The Diction of Death: Addiction

Article by Caleb Schaber
Journalist

The warm sensations of heroin and cocaine injected into my vein are pleasures that some may consider dangerous. I mean, I can quit any time, and I did. But addicts forget that your body, as well as your mind gets hooked when you mainline.

In Abel Ferrara's "The Addiction," Lili Taylor plays a woman recently bitten by a vampire - and she craves blood. Once I tried to quit eating meat. It was easier to stop drinking. I may not be hooked on blood, but I found it impossible to stop eating flesh.

It's not the cocaine, heroin or even blood that addicts me. Definitely I use and abuse alcohol but that is just a lifestyle.

I am addicted to war. It was almost five years ago I left Fort Bliss for Iraq as a DOD contractor. Afghanistan was where I really became hooked. I never had to pay for hash. Almost every Chinese restaurant was a brothel and the waitresses for sale.

Sometimes I want to puke when I think about the things I have seen and been a part of in the war.

Thursday night was the night we went out. Friday was the holy day for those practising Islam. We would head out with some machine guns and hand grenades. Mostly, I ran with ex-patriots that worked as contractors in Afghanistan.

Well, maybe it is not the war I am addicted to. I did quit it over a year ago. But the rush from the danger is something I have enjoyed, except for the unpleasant side effects. Like a junkie puking after tapping a vein, sometimes I want to puke when I think about the things I have seen and been a part of in the war.

Coming back from the war is like going deep sea diving - if you are not careful when you come up for air you'll get the bends. The pressure is different back in the United States. Sure you can get shot going to the grocery store in the wrong neighborhood. But we don't have very many road side bombs or suicide bombs at WalMart. All that death and fear bubbles out of your blood like nitrogen dissolved while you wander the abyss with Leviathan.

The enemy could be outside your door; that paper bag might have a bomb in it; and when a car backfires, you better jump out the way.

I hate fireworks now.

By my third trip to the war I noticed that I was always looking for a fight when I got home.

By my third trip to the war I noticed that I was always looking for a fight when I got home. I wanted danger and sometimes I got it, besides alienating my friends and loved ones who would have preferred that when I had a conflict with someone that I looked to solve it in a more peaceful manner than all out war.

Well, I am all better now. Not really. But I am more aware of my addiction, and my lifestyle choices.

The point of my diction wanders like a misguided laser guided bunker buster. Instead of collateral damages, such as young mothers in blue burkas carrying babies being burned and blown into worm food, my words merely waste time and space.

Lucky for me there are people hooked on the internet, and even reading.

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