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Post by LENA EVE CONLEY on Apr 3, 2013 13:20:01 GMT -5
Addiction is a tricky thing. The term itself is a dangerous, ambiguous one: it comes from the Latin /addere/ -- to devote, to deliver over. When the Romans spoke of addiction, they were talking of debtors and creditors. Appropriate, perhaps, in a world of deals with junkies, but she have always felt its closer kinship to a-diction - "without speech." Silent, subtle, unnoticed. The need that creeps into the mouths of so-called casual users, despite their assurances that they can handle it. They'll never be caught.
What is the line between enjoyment and dependence? When does proclivity cross to need? Often, we are told that an addict is someone who cannot stop herself, but how then do we have recovered addicts, treatment centers, support groups? We hear than an addict cannot see joy in the world without his drug, and yet many men are just as unhappy having never touched it. An addict, they say, goes through severe symptoms of withdrawal once her usage is cut off.
Cannabis is not physically addicting. Nor is LSD. And yet we have stoners and acidheads.
This struggle to define addiction is not a new one. As early as 6000 BC, opium was derived from the poppy, and it enjoyed widespread use in Ancient Greece. The appeal of an opiate is readily apparent; it produces an indescribable wave of euphoria. All pain - mental and physical - disappears, and for two hours you love yourself - really and truly love yourself - just as you are. The world is rosy, and you are charming. Confident. Energized. Impassioned. You catch a glimpse of what could be, and never want to return.
It's little wonder that opium became the drug of the literate. Poe, Wilde, Dodson, Berlioz - all were not only users, but mentioned it in their works. Dorian Grey, hookah-smoking caterpillars, Synphonie Fantastique. . . Other authors, like Dickens and Browning, took laudanum, a tincture of opium dissolved in alcohol. Prescribed for relief of pain and sleeplessness, laudanum was easily found in Victorian medical kits; artists who wished to relieve the "wear and tear of authorship" no longer had to share their vice with strangers.
Eventually, laudanum gave way to morphine as the battlefield painkiller. Named for Morpheus, the god of dreams, morphine was a cheaper, more stable form of opium that was thought to be less addicting. By 1930, morphine had lost out to its more powerful variant diamorphine. A white or brown powder, diamorphine could be injected, or heated and smoked in a process the poets called "chasing the dragon."
Diamorphine is better known as Heroin.
None of these were crutches for Lena. Her weakness came in the form of blackjack tables and professional sport games. Hell you could offer Lena a bet on a youth church basketball game and she’d double down before the end of the second quarter. While others were in the teachers’ lounge, casually watching a football game and gossiping about their students, Lena had made a quick escape to the washroom. Moments ago she was drumming her nails, nervously trying to pull her attention away form the screen and now she was hiding from a television in a washroom. While casting a quick look in the mirror Lena shook her head in disbelief, a light chuckle escaped her lips.
”Look how far you’ve fallen,” she joked to herself. Still, cowering in a bathroom for a moment was better than a future of deep debt and suspicious looking men knocking on her door.
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Post by ZOEY TAYLOR PRICE on Apr 23, 2013 16:07:12 GMT -5
| [atrb=border,0,true] I'LL COME CLEAN | | AND IF I RECOVER |
| [atrb=border,0,true] WILL YOU BE MY COMFORT | Zoey had been sitting in the faculty lounge away from the rest. She only just came back since she graduated from the Academy. She was so wound up and tense that she wasn't even sure how long it had been. Maybe two or three days? She was still getting settled and she had yet to interact with any of the other teachers or professors. She pretty much hid the entire time. She was only in the faculty lounge because she wanted to go over her students' names, but then people came in to watch a game. She wasn't sure what sport it was, but she didn't have much interest for it. She wanted to memorize the names as quickly as possible. It was her old study habits coming back.
But something did catch her eye. A professor looking stressed before quickly leaving the room. Her eyes darted to the other faces and they didn't seem to notice. Instead of taking that as a hint that it wasn't any of her business, Zoey got up from her table which was against the wall and away from the group, and gathered her things before heading out the door. Looking around, she saw the retreating figure of the woman as she went into the washroom. Biting her lip, Zoey contemplated the possible consequences for introducing herself to someone who was obviously trying to get away. But Zoey wasn't doing it so she could meet someone new. She saw that the woman was distressed and Zoey believed in the comfort of others.
Nodding her head in affirmation, she walked toward the washroom and slowly opened the door. It creaked from the movement and Zoey poked her head inside to see the professor looking at herself in the mirror. It wasn't the typical 'powder the nose' look a woman usually had when looking in the mirror. It was something far more familiar to Zoey. But it wasn't her place to jump to any conclusions. She couldn't remember if she knew the woman's name or not. Probably not.
"Um... hi," she said with uncertainty as she squeezed through the crack in the door she'd made. "I saw you come in here. Are you alright?" she asked, making sure to keep her distance in case the woman demanded she leave. She doubted she would just walk away though if someone was in obvious distress. | I'LL GIVE YOU ONE MORE CHANCE | TO SAY WE CAN CHANGE OR PART WAYS | |
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Post by LENA EVE CONLEY on Apr 24, 2013 8:37:04 GMT -5
The silence of her getaway was interrupted by the sound of the door opening up. When the English professor noticed she was no longer along she did her best to push her past thoughts to the far corners of her mind. Lena quickly switched gears and beamed at her little bathroom visitor. She was so tiny and cute enough to enhance her petite little form. ”Hey there hun,” the brunette greeted with a smile. ”Were you worried about little old me?” Lena cocked her head to the side and took in the person before her. Lena definitely had no idea who she was and that made it even nicer of her to come in. ”That’s sweet of you, but I’m alright, I just needed a little break.”
She walked over towards the low windowsill and popped a squat. Rummaging through her back she pulled out a tiny coin and let herself idly play with it. Her sponsor had given it to her once she hit her one year mark of avoiding gambling and sometimes it was enough for the Fire to distract herself from the urge she still felt. The feelings came and went less frequent than her time in New York so she reasoned that she must have been making progress. She just wished she could enjoy watching a sport game like the rest of everyone.
”You’re new here aren’t you?” Lena asked as a means to distract herself. That might explain why she couldn’t put a name to the face. Lena usually had a good memory when it came to meeting people. She was a social butterfly and she couldn’t do so without remember who she met. ”I am too…sort of. It’s my second year here, but I still find myself feeling like the new kid,” she explained. ”I’m Lena Conley. I teach English to all the college students and in my spare time hide in washrooms,” she teased.
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Post by ZOEY TAYLOR PRICE on Apr 24, 2013 13:14:06 GMT -5
| [atrb=border,0,true] I'LL COME CLEAN | | AND IF I RECOVER |
| [atrb=border,0,true] WILL YOU BE MY COMFORT | Even as the woman gave Zoey a smile, the mild look of concern remained on the teacher's face. She told her it was sweet of her to worry, but she just needed a break. But a break from what, Zoey wondered. Was she going through something? Zoey wondered if she had missed something when the woman had made a hasty exit. It didn't seem like there was anything going on in the faculty lounge aside from the others watching a game.
As Zoey tried to think of something that the woman could have been bothered by, the woman had moved to a window sill and made herself comfortable. It seemed like whatever it was that had bothered her hadn't quite dissipated enough for her to leave the washroom. Zoey had made the decision that she wasn't going to leave the washroom until the woman was ready to go. Perhaps that wasn't the best kind of logic - to bombard someone with comfort until they yield, for sometimes people did just need to be alone. Zoey needed her solitude often. She wasn't sure how she would react to someone who was constantly asking questions about how she was. That was one of the reasons she couldn't stay with her parents any longer. It wasn't just that she was a grown woman and needed her own place, but they were constantly checking on her. The way they looked at her told her that they were just waiting for her to have a melt down. And Zoey was now grateful for the space. She could grieve by herself. But when it came to others, she assumed they all needed someone to hang onto.
The woman asked Zoey if she was new and she nodded, taking a few steps toward the woman so they could speak more intimately instead of raised voices from across the room. She introduced herself as an English professor and Zoey smiled in greeting. "Zoey Price," she said lightly. "I just had my first class. I teach Ancient History to the high schoolers... well, the few that are interested enough to sign up for it," she added with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Not a whole lot sign up for something like that." | I'LL GIVE YOU ONE MORE CHANCE | TO SAY WE CAN CHANGE OR PART WAYS | |
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Post by LENA EVE CONLEY on Apr 25, 2013 10:00:51 GMT -5
Flipping her coin back and forth between her fingers she gave the new teacher a sympathetic nod. ”High school kids can be tough. I know I was.” Lena still was almost as energetic and rebellious as she was during her four years at the Academy. Just this morning she was daydreaming about getting more tattoos added to her chest piece. She wouldn’t have taken Ancient History back then if she didn’t have to. Hell, she didn’t even show up for her required classes. ”That’s why I went for college. English is required so everyone’s enthusiasm is all over the place.” Some students took well to the subject while others had the same attitude Lena had in high school.
”Bright side: at least you know all your students probably care about the subject. I get to grade papers where I question if our ‘youth’ even understands the basic structure of a sentence.” ”What were you like in school? You did go to the Academy right?” Maybe Lena had a passing with Zoey during her time there. That was twelve years ago though and Lena’s life had a whirlwind of events. Ohio, Maple Hollow, Boston, New York, back to Ohio and now Maple Hollow once more. Ohio with her parents had been the dullest. When they saved her from her latest foibles in New York she walked up the brick walkway to the disgustingly cheery two story yellow house. A equally cheery harvest cornucopia hung on the door to celebrate the season. The thought reminded her that she needed to pick up a few Christmas cards earlier before she forgot all together. Her small downtown flat in New York had been empty as she sold whatever she could to try and put a dent in her debt. She was planning to be out of New York by then, on to a new destination. She was considering someplace warmer for this move, maybe Miami.
Until straightening her life out and getting her Masters Lena was always the fun girl who had trouble following her. Now she did her best to have fun without the high risks. Shoving down her musings over the failure that was her childhood she directed her attention to Zoey. ”You look like you’re ready to do battle though,” she commented on Zoey’s wardrobe. Zoey was dressed the way a teacher should have looked like in front of a class of rowdy kids, professional. Lena in the other hand still screw the dress code over and wore whatever the hell she wanted. One time the Dean had pulled her in with a fellow student to talk about ‘decency’ in appearance. The Dean should have considered themselves lucky Lena covered up her elaborate tattoos…most days.
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