R i c h a r d G r o s s i

A j o u r n e y t h r o u g h A d d i c t i o n t o w a r d s R e c o v e r y

T H E S E A S O N S O F A D D I C T I O N

© 2020 Richard Grossiwww.oio24.com

http://www.oio24.com

There were seasons which lay the foundations to my addiction, each distinct in nature and story.

With each seasonal change, so changed the face of my addiction. Neither season arrived, nor left, without leaving its profound impression on my life.

Before I entered into Addiction, I surveyed the battleground of those who had fallen and yet, in a moment of pain, Addiction’s promise of life, to one who felt already dead, proved too enticing to resist.

I chose to step forward and onto her blood-stained soil in the belief that I would never succumb to the destruction of the fallen.

W I T H E A C H S E A S O N A L C H A N G E , S O C H A N G E D T H E F A C E O F M Y A D D I C T I O N . N E I T H E R S E A S O N A R R I V E D ,N O R L E F T , W I T H O U T L E A V I N G I T S P R O F O U N D I M P R E S S I O N O N M Y L I F E .

T H ES U M M E RWhen Addiction first arrived, her Summer was emblazed in gold and sparkled with majesty. I listened to her boastings of a life that I could only dream. She sung the enchanted song of the mystics, words which spoke of unbridled passion offering a world of control at the command of my voice.

As I listened, I felt the warmth of her Summer touch my skin and I felt the power she had promised. In that moment a deal was struck in the shade of night and witnessed by those who, too, marched with her.

Under the heat of her sun she surrendered her beauty as she embraced me and our bodies entwined to become one. We shone brightly in the darkness moving with confidence and stature.

We commanded space, time and pleasure.

Together we commanded the world.

W H E N A D D I C T I O N F I R S T A R R I V E D , H E R S U M M E R W A S E M B L A Z E D I N G O L D A N D S P A R K L E D W I T H M A J E S T Y

I first felt the season turn when the heat of the Summer began to cool. Autumn had arrived.

The gentle rains stopped falling and the warmth of those Summer evenings were replaced with a dry wind. I could no longer hear the laughter, nor the song she once sung, and all memory of her warm embrace began to fade.

As the trees began to wither, they held back their fruit and soon their branches were dry, hollowed and burnt. I searched for someone to share my sorrow but found none. Everyone and everything that once had life, was dead.

I fell to the ground and lay on the parched soil trying to recall the warmth of Addiction’s Summer and I cried out for her to sing once again; but, all that remained was a silence framed in a barren landscape. Addiction had turned her face and her majesty and beauty gazed upon me no more.

T H EA U T U M N

A D D I C T I O N H A D T U R N E D H E R F A C E A N D H E R M A J E S T Y A N D B E A U T Y G A Z E D U P O N M E N O M O R E

A violent gale awakened and swirled around me as the winds from the four corners of the earth were released. Winter had breached the dryness of Autumn and brought with it a mist which chilled my soul and blanketed the landscape with snow. The gale swept away the silence of the Autumn and carried me further from all memory of Summer. The iced touch of the wind shattered any recollection of the person I had once known; and I ceased to exist.

Like those that went before, I had succumbed to Addiction and now I, too, had fallen.

Winter’s breath filled my soul and I felt the chill of regret and shame fuse into my being. As my blood froze, I realised that I had become her captive. ‘Hope’ cowered under Addiction’s gaze and scurried out of my heart and back into the arms of Pandora. She had left me to fight alone.

I pleaded for death to bless me but he would not offer his kiss. Addiction is his kin and he would not steal from her. As I lay on that blood-stained battlefield, I heard Addiction’s cruel laugh as she watched my demise. She reigned alone and she reigned supreme.

T H EW I N T E R

I P L E A D E D F O R D E A T H T O B L E S S M E B U T H E W O U L D N O T O F F E R H I S K I S S . A D D I C T I O N I S H I S K I NA N D H E W O U L D N O T S T E A L F R O M H E R

A thousand years passed before ‘Hope’ awoke me one evening with a gentle kiss and, before retreating back to safety, she whispered “dream one last time”. At the touch of her lips I felt a stirring deep within my soul and I closed my eyes and wept. As the tears fell, I cried out to the heavens one last time for mercy before falling into a deep slumber. When I awoke the snow had stopped falling and the winds were calm. I dared to dream that the Winter was coming to a close.

Addiction walked the battlefield, in and amongst the fallen, when she heard a pulse beating in one of her dead. She recognised the threat but would not loosen her grip of Winter, and yield to Spring, without a full display of her power.

As her strength began to weaken under the kiss of Hope, I felt the ice shatter within my veins. The poison I had drunk in that Summer years ago, began to flush from my body with a pain I had never known before.

In rage Addiction released the winds forcing me to my knees, commanding that I bow before her. As the pain ravaged my soul I once again heard the song of the mystics and could taste Addiction’s majesty as I had in the Summer. As she gazed upon me I felt the promise of her warm embrace beguiling me to take my place alongside her once again.

For the first time I saw her weakness but now I felt my strength.

A D D I C T I O N W A L K E D T H E

B A T T L E F I E L D , I N A N D

A M O N G S T T H E F A L L E N ,

W H E N S H E H E A R D A P U L S E

B E A T I N G I N O N E O F H E R

D E A D

I begged for mercy as I dug my nails deeper into the soil to withstand the wrath of her gale. My soul stood firm in its resolute against fear and I refused to fight for her any longer.

My pleas echoed in the heavens as they shattered the Winter’s mist and were retuned with the first of the Spring rains. The downpour drenched my body and creased the blood from the battle away from my skin. I felt breath enter my lungs.

The sins of the Summer began to wash away and the winds were returned to their corners. I stumbled to my feet and walked toward my captor, laying my sword down before her. The enchantment of the mystic’s song turned to a gut-wrenching scream as Addiction shook the earth and commanded my obedience.

I kept my head up, eyes set straight, and stepped over the bodies of the fallen into the natural light of Spring’s sun.

In stepping off Addiction’s blood-stained battlefield I had faced myself, and in doing so, I was no longer one of the dead. As I stepped into the true embrace of recovery and into the promise of the rebirth of Spring, I had now become one of the dying.

T H ES P R I N G

I H A D N O W B E C O M E O N E O F T H E D Y I N G

© 2020 Richard Grossiwww.oio24.com

http://www.oio24.com