What is Wrong With Me?

What is wrong with me? Why am I addicted to this miserable feeling?

I don’t even know when the line blurred, when pain stopped being something to run from and started becoming something I crave. It’s like I’ve carved out a home inside of misery, built walls around it, and now I don’t know how to live without it. And in the back of my mind, the question gnaws at me: is it just the mental illness?

People think addiction is about chasing pleasure, chasing a high, chasing escape. But for me, it’s about clinging to what’s familiar. Misery is predictable. Pain is reliable. Happiness feels like a stranger I can’t trust—it slips away as quickly as it comes. Misery stays. And maybe that’s the illness too—this twisted need to settle for what hurts, to feel safest inside the suffering.

Sometimes I wonder if my brain was wired wrong from the start. If the illness isn’t just something I have, but something I am. Is that why I drink? Is that why I hold tight to the wreckage instead of crawling out? Maybe it isn’t weakness. Maybe it’s just the illness feeding itself, keeping me trapped.

Because the truth is, it’s not just the bottle I’m addicted to—it’s the aftermath. The heaviness, the regret, the cycle of self-destruction. I hate it, yet I chase it. Again and again, like it’s the only thing that belongs to me. And every time, I hear the echo: this is the illness, this is the illness.

So what is wrong with me? Maybe nothing. Maybe it’s all just the way the illness wraps itself around my soul, convincing me that misery is home. Or maybe everything. Maybe I’ve become so tangled in the darkness that even when the door is open, I can’t step out.

And the cruelest truth? A part of me doesn’t even want to.