Why?

For the duration of this article, I’ll be using the word “man” because most of this is referring to one man in particular. Or, more accurately, a boy. Because he never really grew out of that mental state of being a self-absorbed teenage twat. But the generic, soul-seeking questions I ask could either be male or female. I’m clarifying this now to not look sexist and to open with something moderately comical. On with post.

What causes a man to make the decisions he makes? The question confounds me when the decisions made are absolutely idiotic. If a man makes a decisions for a woman (or, indeed, another man) for the sake of love, I can understand. You care about that woman (or man) for whatever reason and have a compelling desire to be with them or help them whenever you can. Perhaps you are just in it for the sex. Perhaps you’ve convinced yourself that they are your soul mate. Perhaps you think they are an alien or a robot and you either want to expose that or be a part of that for some reason. Whatever the case, I can at least understand making decisions in regards to any notion of “love” and how you would interpret that.

I can understand decisions made based on entertainment. I play games, watch movies, watch TV, create my own content to entertain myself, and so on. This is something many people with access to technology do because when we’re bored, we want entertainment. But, more importantly, we need stimulation. Because I play games for two reasons. The first being to experience things I couldn’t possibly experience in real life because it’s either physically impossible or because it’s just something I couldn’t see myself willingly doing. Examples would be like how I can’t physically fly around in space because the technology doesn’t exist yet to do such things. The latter example being that I play military games (specifically Spec Ops: The Line, the only good one) because I have no understanding on what those in the military go through, but I’d never be able to actually do it for… well… a garden variety of reasons. The other reason, of course, is to challenge myself mentally in a variety of situations, ala puzzle games.

And decisions for survival are the easiest to understand. Do you need food? Yes. Is there food nearby? No. Then you make decisions to ultimately bring you to food or some kind of edible substance. The same applies to water and air, though the decision for air is usually made much faster. Are you on the verge of dying? Yes. Then you need to find a way to stop that. All these decisions are simple. Sure, there are some people who opt to not survive because they either gave up against whatever situation they’re stuck in (see The Grey for an example or five) or they’re suicidal. In which case, I won’t go into that one farther because I don’t want to offend anyone else which I may have unintentionally done already.

But what really gets me is when people make idiotic decisions that have no logical reasoning behind them. And now we finally get to what this entire post is about five paragraphs in. I don’t get why someone would throw away their whole life, freedom, and damn near everything that the average American has access to because you’d rather get high/drunk than do what you need to do to acquire these things. This is about to get personal here. But since the individual we’ve been discussing choice to put himself in a bad situation out of his stupidity, I don’t feel like there’s any real reason to keep this stuff quiet.

My brother (I’ll at least leave name out) has been in rehab for a while now for a plethora of good reasons. He’s been at it for a few months now and had seemed to be progressing rather well. The counselors were all saying good things about him. He was working towards getting a job and being able to start over. When I saw him at Thanksgiving (which will now be his last Thanksgiving for quite a while) he was the happiest and healthiest I had seen him since he was a kid. Before all this bullshit happened.

Apparently this past Tuesday, he ran away. The story is that he went out for a smoke and then just walked off and never came back. Where he went, I have no idea. He’s just gone. From what I was told, during a recent job interview or at his job, he went out back and smoked some kind of drug I’d never heard of before and that might have been what triggered this sudden development. Before you ask, yes, he had a job. You can leave the premises IF you get approval from the people running the program and they know where you’re going. And then you’re also accountable for where you go too.

The dumb thing is that while this program and whole process he had to go through would have lasted a few years, he was making a good deal of progress. Like I said, he had a job lined up and had started working (as is my understanding). He also had just gotten a sponsor through the program he was in to continue making progress. But rather than continue forward and moving on with his life, he decided to regress back into old habits that got him into this mess in the first fucking place.

I post near weekly on the stupid bullshit Sony, EA, co-workers, the government, and so on do on a regular basis. And I usually can understand why they make the bad decisions they make (except for the government, but that’s run by an idiot as well). But my brother, someone who I spend nearly 18 years of my life with growing up, is just someone I can’t understand in the slightest. Every opportunity he’s been given has just been thrown away. So much potential lost because he’d rather get wasted than be able to actually live his life outside a prison.

Before someone comes in and tries to defend him, yes, I get it. He’s an addict. But I’ve been pondering the concept of being an addict for quite a while. And I don’t really think it’s a “disease” like the support group insists that it is. And I also don’t think that turning to God is necessarily the right answer for dealing with the issue. For some, that might be enough to help. But, from where I’m sitting, addiction isn’t a disease, but psychological warfare against one’s self. The battle starts the minute you take your first drink or smoke of whatever substance you feel fit to pollute your lungs. And every time you make a choice and you choose to take another drink or smoke another thing, you are losing another battle in the war for control over your actions.

In truth, it all comes down to willpower and your desire for something more. Do you have the strength to move on from heroine and maybe do something for the world? Or are you just going to sit at home and ride another high with another injection? Are you content with vomiting every night or morning after drinking yourself stupid or do you want to experience more of life and be capable of seeing the world beyond the walls around you? Getting drunk or high might, to some, feel like a freeing experience that can take you places. But, from my experience and from what I’ve witnessed, it doesn’t seem freeing to me. It seems more like a limiter. Something to keep you in your place or put you into worse places like prison or rehab.

Then again, who am I to talk? Sure, I don’t drink or smoke. But that’s my point here. I’m not addicted to anything (chocolate maybe) thus I don’t really know what it’s like to not have control over yourself. I don’t know what it’s like to have faulty decision making. I don’t know what it’s like to throw your life away because getting high sounded like a better idea. So, yeah, my lack of experience makes me unable to truly judge the situation. But maybe if you (in this case, my brother) hadn’t gotten himself into such bad habits in the first place, then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I wouldn’t be standing on my soapbox to make my point about how drugs are bad and you’re stupid for doing them.

What’s really baffling to me is he took his phone but not his ATM card. Not that it’d do him good anyway, Mom locked all his accounts. But why bring the phone? If you’re goal is escape, that’s just an easier way for you to be tracked down. This leads me to some dark assumptions of where he might go and what he might do. I don’t have specific locations in mind, mind you. But I suspect that one of two things will occur (however dark and depraved they maybe).

I assume that either he plans to get away, but didn’t think things through all the way and he’s likely going to be too high to get away and will just get caught out of his own stupidity OR he did think ahead, but decided that he wasn’t going back no matter what. In the latter scenario, I suspect he might overdose and… well… yeah… But I could be wrong. He could have thought things threw and he might be finding a way to leave the state/country in order to secure his escape, at the cost of never getting to be with his family or friends again. …

… So… yeah… really no good way for this to end for him. You know, since he decided to just say, “fuck it” to everything and quit while he was still making progress. If had stuck with it, he might have had a better ending to his story. But enough thinking about that. Enough moping and being disappointed in his utter failure to do what he should have done and improve himself into being a better person. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just like every other piece of shit out there who gets wasted that you see lying in a gutter and there’s no point in my being concerned for him if he clearly doesn’t give a shit about himself.

As for me, I’m going to start getting ready to go out tonight. I’m going to spend the afternoon/evening with my lovely girlfriend. Enjoy some nice good, see a movie I hear is pretty damn good, and enjoy quality time with someone I care about… because I’m free to do so. I’m not in jail or running from the law where such luxuries cannot be had. And, brother, if you’re reading this, I want that last bit to really sink in because you’ll be missing out on all the fun and amazing stuff life has to offer you for the next five years (or more). Have fun and happy holidays.