Forced Into Addiction

According to Martin Finucane of the Boston Globe, “Boston University announced Monday that it was revoking the honorary degree awarded to entertainer Bill Cosby in May 2014.”  Aside from the ethics, and integrities that Boston University is proudly displaying in its decision to no longer support Cosby in any way, this story also reminds us that not all addicts are personally responsible for their addictions, at least not in the beginning anyway.

How easy it is for many of us to condemn and point fingers at the addict or the junkie, as addicts are sometimes referred to, and how easy it is for us to exclude “junkies” from “acceptable” society.  Our condemnation and exclusion of them leaves them little to no room to be re-accepted into society at any point after their fallout, and most of us never think twice about it.  Where our tabloids, movies, and even our music usually depicts the addict as someone who was at one point or another of sound mind who willingly and knowingly chose to ingest drugs, we reason that there is no reason to cut them any slack.

Bill Cosby and his high profile/high profile cases definitely brought significant focus and attention to the injustices of unwilling and unknowing victims being drugged and violated, but this is only one man and one scenario.  There are still multitudes more of instances where innocent and sober victims are unknowingly drugged and forced into a world that they may have never known otherwise.  These victims suffer through mental, physical, and sexual violations.  They suffer through the fragmented memories that come with the aftermath of having ingested an unknown drug, and they suffer the shame and disgust that comes with being forced against your will to do anything you wouldn’t have done had you had the sober ability of choice.

Imagine waking up knowing that you yourself hadn’t taken any drugs but you are groggy and experiencing flashbacks of the overpowering of an attacker.  You look at yourself and see clothing in disarray, and your body, well, your body speaks for itself and it tells you that things were done that you never consented to.  If whatever drug or drugs that you were given didn’t cause an instant desire to want to ingest them again, then the shame, disgust, despair, and or anger that comes with being violated will surely call for something to ease the pain; it will call for drugs and alcohol in distraught attempts to erase the memories of a forced violation.

I’m not saying that this is an acceptable reason to be an addict, and I’m not saying that this or any reason is acceptable reasoning behind doing drugs and or becoming addicted to them, but I am saying that every addict has a story, and a reason as to why they do what they do.  I can understand how such devastatingly painful memories would call for any and all help to numb them, and I can understand why only mind altering substances can actually do that.