A Love Letter to Self-Medicators

I don’t care about the stigma attached to the words ‘self-medicator.’ I don’t care if you self-medicate with alcohol, working too much, MDMA, Aderal, cigarettes, serial relationships, or anonymous sex, or food. I don’t care if your coworkers or your family or your friends judge you for self-medicating. I don’t care if you also take presecription meds or if they’re even your prescription meds. I don’t even really care if you call it ‘self-medicating’ or just ‘trying to live my life the best way I can.’

All I care about is that you’re hurting. And I think it’s the most courageous thing you do to try to get help whatever way you can.

I’m so sorry for your pain, for what happened in your past or your youth or your childhood. Or even before you were born. I’m sorry for how difficult this past year was and how sometimes self-medication was our only friend in the long quarantine. I’m so sorry that whoever hurt you maybe never apologized. You didn’t deserve that, and it wasn’t your fault.

I want you to know that I see how hard it is to get help. I see all the ways the systems have failed you, not believed you, not taken you seriously, just not cared. I see all the ways the door has been blocked by sexism, racism, and ableism in all forms. And I see that you’ve kept trying anyway. I can’t imagine how much that must have cost you. And I love you for loving yourself enough to keep going back for help over and over to the places where there didn’t seem to be any help at all. Probably because that was your only choice.

I’m proud of you for insisting on your right to feel better, to heal, to have a life worth living. I’m proud of you for seeking out medicine for your pain. And I’m sorry we don’t have better medicine available than what you’ve found. I wish it worked for you 100% every time.

As a fellow self-medicator, I feel lucky to be among you, to call you my friends. Us self-medicators don’t take pain for granted, and have a stubborn belief that it doesn’t always have to be like this. We want better and we believe we can have better, even though sometimes we don’t quite know which medicine will help us and which will just perpetuate the pain.

I love you self-medicators, because you know that it doesn’t have to be this bad. And my prayer for you is that your medicines are pure, full of the sunshine of the Spirit, move you towards compassion and forgiveness.

I pray that your medicines are available when you need them, have no side effects other than peace and serenity, become helpful allies and true friends, and whose greatest service to you is to directly connect you with the spirit of Love, Truth, and Power.

Don’t stop where you are self-medicators. Let the thing that led you on this journey lead you forward still; the hope of life restored. I’ve been down this road too and even though it might feel like it now, you never have to walk it alone.