When the Pain Outweighs the Pleasure
I finished watching Euphoria late, which is usually how I get around to shows everybody else has already discussed and moved on from. I watched it when I was ready.
What stayed with me was not only the addiction, but the hiding, the bargaining, and the way a person can convince themselves they still have control long after control has left the room. The show made me think about the part of addiction people do not always see, when it still feels like help.
This week, In Season Weekly continues that conversation through a one-on-one interview with someone who has chosen to remain anonymous. I will not use their name, but I will share what they were willing to say out loud.
They were honest about what addiction did in the beginning. At 15 or 16, it made them feel comfortable. It made life feel manageable, even when it was not. Whatever they were going through, addiction made it seem like everything was going to be all right.
“It made me feel good,” they said. “It was a new feeling that I liked.”
That is where the trouble started. It did not show up looking like trouble. It felt like relief, like something that worked, until it did not.
Years later, in their twenties, things started changing. Their surroundings, choices, relationships, and the people around them were no longer the same because the life they were living was no longer the same.
Over time, the same patterns kept showing up: homelessness, jail, prison, another hard place, and another familiar consequence. They could see where the road was leading, even when they did not know how to get off it.
“I felt hopeless,” they said. “I needed to do something different because I could see myself landing in the same positions.”
They had been in treatment programs as early as 17. They went to prison at 18. In their twenties, they were in and out of jail. Different situations kept bringing them back to the same kind of ending.
Even near-death experiences did not change everything right away. That surprised me, but it also made sense. Fear alone does not always make a person stop. They said the real turn came when they were mentally and spiritually tired.
Family helped as much as they could, but addiction had burned trust and worn people down. They had people who loved them, but those people had learned to stop risking themselves for another rescue.
That is when help had to come from a different place.
They had to accept help. Someone outside of their family had to take a chance on them, and they had to take a chance on that person, too.
“I didn’t even know what hope was,” they said. “I couldn’t even imagine myself not getting intoxicated or obliterated.”
When I asked what they had to forgive themselves for, the answer was not one thing. It was years of damage, choices, hurt, and wanting to apologize to everybody else while refusing to give themselves a break.
“You want to apologize to everybody else that you’ve hurt,” they said. “But you don’t want to give yourself a break and apologize to yourself.”
That stayed with me because forgiving yourself can sound simple until you have to do it. It does not excuse what happened or clean it up. It lets a person stop dragging every bad choice into every new day.
At some point, the pleasure was gone.
“When the pain outweighs the pleasure,” they said, “you know.”
What used to feel good started running their life. What used to feel like an escape became the thing they had to answer to. What used to be fun started taking more than it gave.
They could not figure it out alone.
“I needed help,” they said. “I had to get some help.”
When I asked what they would say to someone who knows they need to change but does not know where to begin, the answer was simple.
Ask for help.
Asking for help means telling the truth before you know what comes next.
Addiction may have started as comfort. Recovery started when they stopped pretending they could handle it alone.
There was no big speech or perfect plan. Just the moment a person says, “I cannot keep doing this,” and means it enough to try something different.
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