I’ll never forget West Texas. It was there, in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night, where death suddenly entered my life.
I felt my then-boyfriend Cody (not his real name) get out of bed quite suddenly, and although it was still dark, my first thought was that he must be late for work the way he seemed to have almost jumped up.
Then, all at once, somehow I knew something was wrong. I leapt up, barely awake, turned on the light, and rushed around to the other side of the bed. There was Cody, face down on the floor, writhing and convulsing, and bleeding from his ear.
In that moment, it seemed as if the sky was ripping open above me. A reality I had been in denial about all of my life was abruptly and violently thrust upon me in an instant: people could die without warning. Young people. My person. My partner.
I thought for sure he was dying. I thought he was bleeding from his brain because something terrible was happening to it.
As it turned out, he did not die that night. He had had a seizure that would lead to the discovery of a brain tumour that would eventually claim his life, he was told.
What I found most astonishing about the whole experience of being faced with the impending death of my partner was that it made me aware of the mental construct of a future I had built that definitely involved him and our life together.
In fact, that mental structure made of a fantasy based on what I wanted and felt I needed was so central to my sense of wellbeing that when it was shattered I felt as though my very psyche was shattered.
I was so attached to this idea, this hope for a beautiful life filled with beautiful romance, that when it was taken from me through his diagnosis (as well as his violent abusiveness), I was unable to look away from actual reality and continue to create an ideal but false reality inside my mind.
In reality, our lives are fragile. In reality, we do not know what is coming. In reality, we have little or no control over the world or other people.
Sex and love addiction—or any other addiction—is essentially an attempt to cope with what feels like an intolerable reality. It is an effort to gain and maintain control. It is an effort to know the future and compensate for a painful past.
The gift of beginning to truly recover from addiction is the ability to handle life, and whatever it may offer up.
The basis of recovery is learning to be present. Addiction is a problem in the mind. And awareness—waking up to reality—is the solution.