The last one always sucks

The last one always sucks... and the first one always predicates the last one. So there are only two possible ways to avoid the last one. 1. Never stop. or 2. Never take the first one. I tried the never stop. Now I am engaged in avoiding the first one. It is the first one that always killed me, but it isn't until I am taking the last one that I realize I am dying.

It is also possible to reframe the situation entirely away from drugs and instead the more basic or underlying kinds of struggles (which almost always are tied to one form of scarcity or another - like not having enough material or emotional resources or feeling of profound "in-safety" that often results from the experience of both big T and "little" t trauma) that predicated the drug use to begin with.

But if you just want to talk about the "using" issue (true I find it to be somewhat superficial, but that doesn't mean others don't find it useful), I like the connection you draw between the "first" and "last" use. I'm not sure off the top of my head what exactly I like about that logic, probably because it is all about playing the tape through as they say, but I'll get back to you

I tried the "never stop" approach. At the time, I wished I could just pass out and never wake back up. But it wasn't to be that easy for me. All I ever did was wake up in hospitals, get arrested, go through the motions in yet another treatment program and let my life completely fall to shit. I'm glad now for whatever reason that the universe saw fit to always have me wake back up. Given what I went through, I feel I can honestly say death would have been the easier way out. Everyone's circumstances are different, but once I get any kind of downer into my system, whether it's a benzo, alcohol or an opiate, I can't stop until I wake up in a hospital handcuffed to a gurney (again). The only thing I can do is not take the first one.