Of All The Addicts I've Loved Before

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TW: This piece uses strong profanity, and makes references to addiction, emotional abuse, domestic violence, and trauma (including abortion). Please take care while reading.

This is a personal reflection on my experiences, and I recognise that others’ experiences may differ. These words are my own, and are not meant to diminish anyone else’s struggles or identities.

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The first addict I loved was my mother. Her drug of choice was the gaze of men—a need I once mistook for love, too. An approving gesture from a man was another brick in the wall of her self-esteem. A wall so fragile it could, and did, crumble at any time—rubble crashing to the floor and entombing any unfortunate passersby.

The second addict I loved was my stepmother, who was a drunk, also once just like me. A short woman in stature, she was feisty and outspoken, with a boyish frame, carved out further by the karate she mastered. She chain-smoked cigarettes out of our living room window but her half-hearted attempts to not allow the smoke back in meant that the house constantly smelled like the bookies. I could never understand why she wouldn't go outside and smoke by the door. I remember suggesting it once, and she told me, why should she—it’s her house. It was almost like the smoke knew, curling back in with the same entitlement.

As the years passed, her once bobbed curly hair was eventually cut into a buzz cut, with the remaining blonde tufts on top dyed bright pink. We used to shop in the Men's section of C&A together on a Saturday, getting the bus into town when I was a teenager, and she's the first woman who taught me not to be a weakling. She later turned out to be a lesbian. That part came much later. It was a shock to my father, at least.

Upon discovering her new sexuality, I was briefly hopeful—perhaps now she’d become the emotionally available mother I’d always dreamed of. A fantasy, of course—my own egocentric rewrite of the narrative. Instead, I was met with a reality far less delusional: she turned out to be the kind of lesbian who was exactly like the straight woman she’d been the day before: Gruff. Detached. Still entitled. Still full of judgment. She remained cold, curated, and utterly uninterested in most people—particularly me. At least, that’s how it felt from the outside to a girl still hoping for a mother she could reach.

The third addict I ever loved was a man named Steve, who was 23 years old when I met him. I had just finished my GCSEs and was still wearing cotton knickers—more girl than woman, despite what he decided I was. Steve’s addictions? Cocaine. The need to be adored, in charge, in control. Violence. His massive fucking ego. The order of import would change depending on how powerful he wanted to feel on that particular day, at that particular moment, but they eventually all turned up together, one way or another. Steve was the classic football hooligan of the nineties - loud, bizarrely confident, lads-lads-laaaaads kind of man. The kind of man who watched his teenage girlfriend’s blood pool on the floor. Watched, as it crept across the white tiles, menacing and alive.

The fourth addict I loved was a lawyer named Seb—one of those fake-posh boys who boastfully went to grammar school, without admitting it was only because Mummy and Daddy couldn’t afford the boater at St Cuthbert’s. His addictions were status, power, and collecting vulnerable, impressionable young women to torment—like that kid with braces in Toy Story, if Sid had access to your soul.

He loved to play games—like taking me out for drinks to meet his friend (who he’d just fucked in the car on the way there). Or inviting me to a family BBQ, where everyone avoided me like the plague. On the way home, he told me it was because he’d told them I was a heroin addict.

Admittedly, I’d upgraded to cotton G-strings by that point—but I hadn’t reached Trainspotting status. Not then, or ever.

Unless you count that opium I smoked when I was twenty-one. Or the joint that Steve handed me, when I was high as a kite at Glastonbury Festival, which I very quickly discovered was laced with crack.

I digress. Back to Sebassssstian.

Seb was handsome and socially adored on the stage of life, but behind closed doors, he was a monster. Years later, I saw his face on the front page of a newspaper—for battering a stranger with a wrench.

I think people started to believe me then.

Maybe.

The fifth addict I loved was a woman named Bee—an alcoholic, a cocaine addict, and arguably, a narcissist. I say arguably because there’s still a naive glimmer of hope inside me that wants to believe otherwise.

Bee was my best friend. We laughed at all the same things, finished each other’s sentences, and could lock eyes across a room and know exactly what the other one was thinking. She made me laugh like no other human. She had this raw, unfiltered confidence that oozed out of her—and somehow, being near it made me feel stronger. At a time when I felt small and shaky and stupid, she made me feel powerful.

She’s the reason I was able to leave Seb.

But in the end, she still betrayed me.

Perhaps, though, we betrayed each other over the years—in small, incremental ways that quietly stacked up, until karma had no choice but to detonate.

Even so, I still think she’s a cunt.

The sixth addict I ever loved was a military man named Lewis, who looked a bit like a Nordic Viking and was probably the first man I ever really fell in love with. But, sadly for my fairytale fantasy, he was addicted to infidelity and avoiding commitment. Not just the diamond ring kind, but also the kind that ends up being sucked out of your womb when you’ve been given an ultimatum and can’t afford the eighteen year gestational 'Fuck You.'

I never forgave him for that.

Or myself.

The seventh addict I loved was a man named Sam—a sadist with a raging cocaine habit. I remember once writhing around in pain after an operation, while he took photos of my agonized tears, claiming it was "funny." When I began contemplating leaving him, I found myself Googling sexual assaults from the early nineties in the local area, searching for a man who fit his description. He had very distinctive eyes.

Inside, he was dark, and he wanted to do dark things.

I let him, for a while.

The eighth addict I loved was a man named Cain, who was, simply put, addicted to himself. He was also an alcoholic, living and breathing control and adoration. He was involved in something covert back home across the water; I would be privy to hushed conversations happening upstairs in my bathroom, angry whisperings I wasn’t supposed to hear.

He pretended to be addicted to me, for a while. It was so convincing that I truly believed we would be together forever. But it was just smoke and mirrors, on both our parts. He discarded me like trash when he was done, and I cried on the wooden floor of my bedroom every night for over a year after he left.

The ninth addict I loved was a man named Jared, the angriest man I’d encountered so far, which was shocking given all the rageful little men that had stomped before him. He told me he’d done time inside for manslaughter, which would have been a Big-Ben-sized-red-flag for most people. But yet, it stunned the part of me that was still naive and cotton-pant-wearing, to hear him confess that he’d tried to actually murder a man with a screwdriver just because the guy looked at him the wrong way.

As with all things, it was only a matter of time before I looked at him the wrong way, too.

The tenth addict I loved was Carl, who was addicted to the roadie lifestyle and fucking as many beautiful women as possible. Ironic, really, considering he resembled a giant ginger boiled egg who’d been to Wizarding School. Which is essentially why we ended. But it was also because he insisted on putting his hand behind his head, one leg propped up on the bed, while fucking me from behind.

It was hard to watch, so I didn’t.

But the truth is, I never truly loved any of these addicts—myself included. They were just drops in the ocean, compared to the last addict I will ever love.

The last man I will ever love.

He was fire.

He was light.

He had the whole universe in his fucking eyes.

He was every colour of love imaginable.

Looking back, my ego thought I was trying to save him. Turns out—we saved each other. Then again, he’s the one who didn’t make it. And I’m still here, trying to figure out what that means.

As much as we loved each other in innocent light, our darkest parts also found a home. Now he lives inside my veins, and I wonder if he’s always been there—and was just returning home. He’s more me than I ever was.

I learned what loving unconditionally looks and feels like.

To forgive the unforgivable.

To be forgiven.

To dive into black water after each other.

Again and again and again.

In the end, it wasn’t about saving. I

t was about salvation.

About being seen—naked, fucked up, raw.

We stared straight into the worst parts of each other and didn’t look away.

And somehow, we loved each other there, finding a home in the ruins our ghosts left behind.

That kind of love doesn’t fade.

It stays.

Forever burned into the soul—

like a scar, or a prayer.