Why can't I stop?
One of the questions I hear most often, whether from people struggling with addiction or from those who love them, is surprisingly simple: "Why can't they just stop?"
For years, I asked the same question. What I've come to understand is that addiction rarely begins as the problem. More often, it begins as a solution. Long before it destroys a life, it offers relief from pain, loneliness, fear or shame. It works... until it doesn't.
That simple shift in perspective has changed the way I think about recovery, storytelling and even my own life.
Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Anna Iris on the Ego Was Here podcast to talk about addiction, trauma, recovery, writing Addict, acting, fatherhood and the long process of discovering that I wasn't broken after all.
It was one of the most thoughtful conversations I've had on the subject, and I'm grateful to Anna for creating the space for it.
If you've ever wondered why addiction is so difficult to understand — or why recovery is about so much more than simply putting the drugs down — I hope you'll find something useful in it.
Watch the full conversation above.
0 comments