Through the Fog

Tag: drugs

  • I Was High Then

    I was high then—

    I couldn’t face things

    the way they stood in front of me,

    bare and demanding.

    I needed the blur,

    the soft edges,

    the lie that told me

    tomorrow could wait.

    Reality was too sharp,

    asking questions I didn’t have answers for,

    holding mirrors I didn’t want to look into.

    So I floated above it,

    called it coping,

    called it freedom,

    anything but fear.

    I wasn’t chasing joy—

    I was running from myself,

    from the weight of being present

    in a life that hurt to touch.

    Now I see it clearer:

    I wasn’t weak,

    just overwhelmed.

    I didn’t want to disappear—

    I just didn’t know

    how to stay.

  • Happiness in Sobriety (I Still Miss the High)

    Photo Credit: Frankie Cordoba

    They don’t tell you this part—

    sobriety doesn’t erase the memories.

    I still miss the high.

    I miss the numb,

    the blur,

    the way the world melted just long enough

    for me to forget I was hurting.

    There are days I crave the nothingness,

    days when pain feels louder than progress,

    when the urge whispers,

    “One more time won’t kill you.”

    But I know better—

    it almost did.

    More than once.

    Sobriety isn’t a clean break.

    It’s a war with the version of myself

    who still thinks relief comes in liquid,

    in powder,

    in pills,

    in poison that used to feel like peace.

    I don’t stay sober because I stopped wanting the high.

    I stay sober because I finally realized

    the high never loved me back.

    It just made the fall quieter.

    It made the pain delayed—

    not gone.

    Now happiness is different.

    It’s small.

    Subtle.

    Hard-earned.

    It comes in mornings I don’t regret,

    in nights I remember,

    in breathing that doesn’t taste like escape.

    I don’t always feel strong.

    But I feel present.

    And maybe that’s what living really is—

    missing the high

    and still choosing the heartbeat.

  • 3:00 A.M. Confession

    Do you drown out your sorrows

    with whiskey, cocaine,

    a 3:00 a.m. panic

    and a prayer for change?

    Do your hands shake

    when the silence gets too loud,

    when your heart forgets

    what calm feels like?

    Do you chase peace

    the same way you chased the high —

    desperate, trembling,

    half alive, half gone?

    Because I do.

    Every night I beg the dark

    to let me start over,

    and every morning,

    I wake up still burning.

  • Drugs or Me

    Photo Credit: Mishal Ibrahim

    It was always drugs or me.

    And most days, even I would’ve chosen the drugs.

    They were easier to love. They didn’t need anything from me — just my time, my body, my sanity. They didn’t ask for truth, didn’t care about promises. They just made everything quiet for a while.

    I used to think they made me feel alive. But really, they just made me forget that I didn’t want to be. The high wasn’t joy — it was escape. A few seconds of peace borrowed from tomorrow.

    And every time I swore I’d stop, I meant it. Until I didn’t. Because the pain always came back louder, meaner, hungrier than before.

    You can’t love someone who’s already halfway gone.

    And I was disappearing one hit at a time — not dying fast, just fading slow.

    They say recovery is choosing yourself. But no one talks about how hard it is to love the person you became in the process. The shame, the memories, the wreckage you can’t sweep clean.

    It was drugs or me.

    And for the longest time, I didn’t think I was worth choosing.

    But maybe now — shaky, sober, surviving — maybe I’m learning that I am.