Lies

I fell in love with a Netflix Limited Series show.

It is called, "The Queen's Gambit."

I strongly suggest it.

It is not a true story, but I watched it like it was.

It has six or seven episodes and it's worth the watch.

Addiction does something to us.

It lies to us.

Addiction teaches us how to lie to ourselves, too.

And to others.

The weird thing about addiction, too, is this...

We must know that what we are doing is not good because we sure try to hide our addiction from other people.

We try to get dressed up, put on a good face, and go about our lives like we are excellent in our field, well put together, and at the top of our game.

We aren't.

We get home, or to a safe place in our minds, and fall apart - fall into our addiction.

Yet, we cannot stop the addiction.

It now has a hold of us.

It takes away our agency.

That is the evil in addiction...

It actually takes away our agency.

How dare it!

Young Elizabeth Harmon had a HARD life.

She watched her mother kill herself.

She was raised in an orphanage, where she became addicted to tranquilizers.

She was adopted by a couple who hated one another, and really had no desire to have a child.

There, she was introduced to alcohol.

The alcohol and tranquilizers were her addiction.

So was chess.

And chess...

She was the best in the world.

A girl, in the 1960's, beating all of the men around the globe.

She was addicted to being the best.

Two completely different addictions: 

One was chemical based and bad.

The other was a process addiction and not bad.

Yet, both addictions.

It took years and years.

It took so many tragedies.

It took people who really actually loved her stepping in and being the tough lovers in the perfect ways to help her see that alcohol and tranquilizers were not going to help her with chess, or life.

It took HER recognizing that.

No one can actually stop an addict. 

There is SO much intense, active, deliberate work that has to be done literally every minute of every day in order to go through the healing of addiction...

And it never goes away.

We just learn how to keep it at bay.

Oh, the lies addiction tells us.