Alcoholism - Blog Posts

Addiction ( in only friends ) and how it impedes your perception of the situations you are in

Never thought I needed to write this but I have been seeing so many posts blaming ray and I wanted to get it out. Later if I have time I would write a dissertation about this topic because it's extremely important.

Disclaimer : Know that I am not absolving ray of his wrongdoings nor am I blaming his behaviour on other characters but we know the root of his behaviour but it seems like there is a lack of understanding.

All this is from my observations with people I know who have addiction so this is my personal experience and not me telling everyone how they should act or feel.

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Ray is a selfish person. We all know that. But so is Boston , so is mew, so is cheum. So why is ray getting the most hate. Because he is a drunkard. During ep 3 or 4 , when we saw ray at his most vulnerable , everyone was going oh poor ray. And now everyone is telling the opposite. Now I see a lot of people asking why mew and the others not taking care of him, even me. But this is why. See how easy it was for a major part of the audience to forget his addiction and completely blame ray. Now imagine if you are the one who has to deal with ray on a daily basis for two long years. It's exhausting , overwhelming and frustrating and eventually you are going to form an antipathy. My drunkard friend is not going to listen to my well intentioned warnings so why should I care. You can see it clearly in mews behaviour. Mew has given up caring.

Loved ones start giving up , because the pain the addicted one causes is too much to bear. And that is the reality of addiction. This was most clearly shown through rue from euphoria. Her mother, friends, sister cared about her but you can see the toll it creates on everyone.

Addiction is a harmful disease and one of the reason why is that it morphs the user into someone unrecognisable. Look at sober ray, his moments with sand, he's adorable, fiesty, sassy and very charming. But what he becomes when he is drunk or high is a selfish guy who doesn't care about anyone but himself.

Once again I am not blaming the entire thing on alcohol, but trying to say how that much addiction can cause one to act in ways they won't normally wont when sober.

Alcohol and drugs is ray's escape from his inner thoughts and his shitty lonely life. But he's got so dependent on it and his pain is too much that he greatly needs that buzz of happiness that alcohol and drugs gives him. He's so dependent on it that he can't be happy without it. I know that most portrayel of alcoholics have them be absolutely useless and trashed. But ray is not like that, which is even more dangerous , because he is a functional alcoholic.

And it's dangerous because it won't be clear to a lot of people about how he needs help. And more importantly it won't be clear to him about how he needs help. When ray thinks to himself all he can focus on is that he can do chores, he can talk to people normally, he can walk in a straight line, he is not an alcoholic in the way we are always shown, but he is. He is seen with drinks almost all the time, he spends the most time in a bar , he is probably walking around conscious but still drunk. And as long as he is a functional alcoholic , ray would never go or ask for help.

When you are that dependent on this , any tiny problem would have you running to escape , because the escape as an option is easy then doing the messy work of knowing when you are wrong or wronged and dealing with the emotions that come with it. We have seen ray doing it, especially when paired with mew.

When you are that dependent you don't see that you need help. To ray he is having fun, he's not miserable when he is drunk or high , when he is in that state he gets everything. So what if he is called a burden, he is still on top of the world. So when people say to him that he is an alcoholic he's confused , because he is not an alcoholic. He's having fun.

Now during ep 8 we are actually seeing him being selfish and an asshole. During ep 6 we saw him very effectively damaging his relationships. The common point between these two eps is that he is under the influence. Those are his sober thoughts but he won't say it aloud when he is sober but when he's drunk he doesn't have any inhibitions so he says everything that comes to him. Combine that with the pain of being called a burden , of unrequited love and he tries to escape from the feelings by drinking again and it forms a vicious circle. It came to a point where he lashed out and as always hurt people under the influence of something can be destructive.

I am not saying that what he did was right or the pain he caused was justifiable or should be forgiven. They shouldn't but rays feeling shouldn't be minimised too. Addiction is complex and asking for help can be a hard task. And in the case of ray I don't think he realises that he needs help. That's the problem with addicts, they don't know that the thing that's giving them happiness is the same thing that's causing them harm. Or they know but they are far too gone that they don't care.

Be it smoking , drugs or alcohol or anything else , people use it for escape but the usage becomes too much that their entire day is only fulfilled , when they get their daily dose of happiness from it. Which changes their perception to accomodate one and only one thing , the next fix, the next drink. Which is why they become selfish cause their entire world is wrapped around that bottle and everything else comes secondary.

Addiction has the potential to completely change a person. You know the person you grew up with or you know personally is somewhere inside there but what you see when they are under the influence is someone you never dreamed your loved one's can be. And it's painfull.

Another way people with addiction is dehumanised is that everyone uses them. You want a drink ? that person will always have a bottle with them, you need a fix that guy knows a person , want to have fun that person will show you a good time . I think a lot of people have heard these phrases.

For most people it's harmless fun, for the addict it's an ego boost . And it encourages them to continue that lifestyle. Which is what happened with raymew and the entire friends group in general.

They use ray but they are willfully blind to the harm that causes him. Mew was the one who wanted to try smoking, coke and party, ray never forced him, because for ray that is his happy place. Substances is the one thing that gives him happiness, he does not have the capacity to stop or think of it as wrong.

To ray , mew has finally chosen him, he is finally doing the things he loves. He's not going to stop mew from doing anything when he thinks he finally getting what he always wanted. Ands it toxic and it's not right but that's the reality of an addict.

And he should be happy about it but he isn't because he needs sand. And that is what confused him to spiral further and ignore his emotions and snort coke. Because that's the best thing he can do, run away.

Why is sand so important to ray ? I said in an another post that sands generosity is out of the ordinary. He's mature for his age in a way that makes me feel like he has known an addict before.

And ray needs that. He doesn't need enablers. he needs someone to physically stop him from taking it. Or atleast make him realise that what he is doing is dangerous. And sand is the one who's going to do it.

Thing is it's not sand's job to do it. But till ep 8 he was choosing to be that person. Saying that ray is forcing sand to do something is just taking away the agency from sand. He's not a kid. He's making his own decisions.

And if he is helping him it won't be an easy journey. If they are bringing the addiction rehab plot line into the show then I could see a scene happening that is reminiscent of the car chase scene from euphoria.

literally me (credits to the person i saw their post on pinterest and i decided to make my own version)

girls night 💕

@cerysteehee @angelbabyrizz

i’ve consumed more painkillers and alcohol in the past two days than actual food 🎀

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQrkkl5SOak)

This Ted Talk has been the most helpful in my own “foxhole” pit recently and I hope this can reach out and help anyone else! A special thank you to my two true friends while I was side tracked by an abusive friend who only used me and I allowed that friendship to continue for far too long. It infuriates me to see how toxic this one friendship was that I lost connection with my closest and truest friends and others. Also for others who dealt with an alcoholic, watch minute 16. It hit me harder than any article and personal research I’ve done yet.

Honey smashed.

i’m gonna be honest, though i haven’t drunk before there’s a chance i’ll drink myself to death and i don’t know how scared i am of that.

NEED there to be like, a party or something after an alien invasion and like someone brought alcohol to the watchtower and like usually captain marvel doesn't drink because ??? billy's like 10 alcohol tastes like absolute chicken butt to him but Zeus is like " drink drink drink " and the other gods(minus Solomon,, someone has to be the rational one there) join in and go " DRINK DRINK DRINK !!! " like they cheering for the Olympus world cup

and captain is like " eh ok sure " and decides to see how much alcohol he could drink in the span of 2 minutes or less. and so that spirals into almost every member of the Justice League witnessing THE Boy Scout™️—that no one has EVER saw drink a drop of wine—chugging down each glass like it's no tomorrow,,, and it's kinda impressive..

of course. captain stops (only because he didn't want to finish it all,,, plus the alcohol he just drank doesn't even taste like the rum from the 1950s,, so, even if it doesn't taste like chicken butt it still doesn't taste great either) but like hey at least the gods were having a blast!!! (they were a bit bummed captain had to stop though) (solomon felt like he could actually breath again after that)

and the jl??? respect the ever living shit out of him because god fucking damn captain marvel just walked off and continued whatever he was doing afterwards like he didn't just chug down fifty glasses of booze,, (he just doesn't have a liver or kidney to damage nor mind to get drunk off LMAOO)

and then they were like . huh. How much liquor can cap hold??? so they all get a bit curious .. and try to see how many more shots could he take ,,, and then it somehow just spirals into a long, nasty competition, one person just straight up bringing a barrel of rum for captain to try

and marvel?? he finds it kinda funny. the alcohol doesn't really affect him anyways and if he just turns off his taste buds he can pretend it's water most of the time. plus a good past time if there's nothing to do. but he does like giving out his thanks and reviews on the taste of it most times

,, and maybe the utmost eagerness that shows in Captain Marvel's face whenever a member wants him to try a very VERY strong concoction full of alcohol that'd probably kill a horse if a sip was taken by a normal civilian and how sincere he is on the way he pats their heads and gives out actual advice on how to improve it (thank you Solomon) was KINDA nice. just a tad bit nice.

oh who's pretending at this point, the competition at the end of the day just waters down into how many drinks??gifts??? the line blurs to a certain point ,, they could give to marvel and to see how many compliments they could get from marvel. they all know at this point that the drinks can't really affect him anyways. plus plus!!! captain would give the extra rum leftover into a tiny-ish water bottle made of magic and brings it with him everywhere, strapped to his waist like fanny pack. no one questions this. we love you capdad

(most of the gods living rent free in cm's head fucking cheer when one day billy gets gifted booze that could affect the gods)

the problem with this is that i have issues, mainly with alcohol, that really do not help in these scenarios. so it's either i go sober for a month or two and work on myself, or i get drunk about it. i know what's easier (and more fun) but i did that the last couple of times, and it's not great.

so i guess i'm in a love triangle? gonna kms, will probably rb with elaboration later

i love the idea that in the song Hotel California by the Eagles, the speaker only realises how horrible staying in the eponymous Hotel California actually is when they realise that there is no wine.

"Message Intercepted (or Us)"

Mixed media collage, 2022. The mummy cat gives a piece of their ka to this skull that's wracked by chaos, being nothing more than a bubble that can't reach, the pages between the two torn.