On Morality of Judgment of Coping

I’m kind of drunk right now; I’ve been drinking too much again recently. I think there’s something esoteric to why someone needs substances at different times in their life. I used to drop acid or do x when I was younger. My dad still takes an acid tab and then does a ski patrol shift; don’t go skiing when my dad is on patrol. I’ve wondered why I go back and forth between total sobriety and what feels like addiction. I think I am an addict, but I’m addicted to a variety of cope. I’ll argue to my death that’s true for us all. In my mind, we’re all addicts who see ourselves in each other like a ripple sees a wave. Which brings me to the question: why do we need to abuse substances or feelings?

I’ll argue everyone abuses, but for brevity on this late night, let’s agree on this as an axiom for the sake of the rest of the content. The healthiest people in the world abuse something; even their own mental discipline can be an abuse. You can see this in someone eating the lotus in the Odyssey, and you might say to yourself, “I would never do that. I don’t need that kind of release,” while you watch five hours of The Good Wife and sit on a mighty perch. Is your imagined world of interest any different than that of an addict on the street who lives in his own imagined kingdom, whose keys are heroin and a needle? I would argue not. If we strip away the world in which we were reared and the predilections of a society bent on injury, the behavior underlying the pain has so little difference that it gains a comic effect.

We as a society acknowledge that heroin or MDMA or whatever can elicit a physical dependency, but what about your shows or your foods or your comforts? Even a gym or a hobby can become a dependency. There’s something human about needing to be dependent on something, dependent on anything. There’s a beauty in that, the beauty of connection and of care, but what do we do when those are absent and we’ve felt that sweet embrace before? Does the loyal wife whose husband has broken her trust get a rush from seeing another woman accomplish deeds in the face of her reflected adversity? Does the addict who sits on the street outside my Whole Foods, whose parents abused him, get to forget his mother each night when the needle pierces his skin? I think the answer is yes to both.

Do both of these characters in the world we built, sitting maybe only a few feet apart, really differ in such a significant way? Do they both abuse something in order to escape a feeling or relate to another when all else has become absent? She looks out her window one night and down onto the street below and sees the hobo in the rain, strung out with his spoon in hand, and can easily think, what a shame he has become, and go right back to her couch with her ice cream in hand until 1 a.m. The impoverished, neglected man can look up and, in his mind, wonder how one so high can fail to see that only a minute of her time could lend him the hand he needs or take the needle away. In the mind of each, they argue for the other’s inferiority in more ways than one, but in the end they are one and the same, separated only by a pane of glass and the extremity to which their abuse can take form.

Coping is human. It makes our experience whole in a way that might be missing a beat if we don’t stop and see that we can all relate to the feelings that cause our need to be drunk in our own ways. I think coping is a good experience, to be honest, and I want to choose what I’m drunk upon; that choice is the part we must take to heart. My best friend is drunk on women, my ex-wife is drunk on Taco Bell, my dad is drunk on X, and my former best friend is drunk on the gym. We all cope, and I think we should embrace the cope when we need it and try to choose the cope that is the safest and most secure instead of running or pushing it away. We can examine: does the Taco Bell meet the X in the middle of the road? Probably not. But does that mean the X deserves the stigma that a Doritos Locos Taco avoids? Maybe that’s also a no.

I should probably answer my question from two paragraphs ago—oh wait, I did! So here’s another question: why do I need to cope right now? Here’s another: how do I cope? I’ll break that into two pieces, and we’ll start in reverse.

How do I cope? In unhealthy and healthy ways. I drink cider; I love the taste, but I know the health risks. I smoke a cigarette here and there because it’s tradition in the native world. I don’t know if I even enjoy it or if it’s habit. I go and work out and run and bike and play hockey; that, ironically, is healthy. I think I somehow stumbled on an exemplary cacophony of coping mechanisms. I ask myself: is one somehow on a higher moral plane than another just because of its impact on my health and well-being? We can say that alcohol could shorten my life. I can say body dysmorphia started at the gym has killed many a man. We can argue that a cigarette will burn my lungs. I can say Claude Lemieux might have had CTE from years of pro hockey, and it might have had an impact on his death. I hope his family is okay. We can arrive at heroin having a physiological addiction. The addict can say back, your brain and soul have changed to not see out into the rain. I’m answering questions with questions; I’ll leave this as an exercise for the reader to undermine my claim.

Why do I need to cope? We all need to cope in times of sorrow or hardship or generalized trouble. If you haven’t encountered those, you have been given a truly amazing gift. I need to cope when a woman I thought I could love would not accept the piece of me I would have willingly surrendered to her. I need to cope when my previous love is still my love, but never in the same manner. I grieve for what was and what I inadvertently lost. I need to cope when my brother’s death is once again on my mind and I lose the wind in my sails and my place on the map. I cope the hardest when those all hit me on the head with their steely hammers in one single breath. To not be self-serving in this essay, I ask you to examine why you cope as I have examined my own preoccupations. Do you cope to forget?

Let’s return to our premise on my drunken night. I abuse substances, and I abuse myself through my repeated examinations of my own feelings. I’m a Kierkegaard without his faith, or maybe I’m just a tipsy Nietzsche. Nah, I’m just Charlie Kelly with a box of hornets disguised as pens. Substances are abused by all, and I leave it to you to figure out your own ethers and for what use you do partake. Let me give you one final thought, spelled out in excruciating, unhidden detail so you can take note of its import: do not hold a candle to the poor man’s brow, for you too are enfeebled for your uses in the eyes of another.