“Can you stop something
you can not control?

How do You control something
you can not stop?”

I guess that question has stumped dopers and drunks like me for thousands of years. Yours is a good poem, and I, for what it is worth, believe every word of it.

I also believe that the finest writers in the world could not answer that age old question. How do I not drown in these dark cold waters of active addiction? When one places themselves in a place like that, words are of little avail.

I like to think of it like watching two people in deep water. One of them knows how to swim, and the other one does not. The swimmer is in harmony with the water, cooperates with it to stay afloat. That simple life saving act seems to be almost effortless. The swimmer glides across the water at will. Perhaps they are even happy.

But what of the one who has not learned that simple trick of swimming? She is fighting for her life. She is exerting an enormous amount of energy, flailing about, and yet she is sinking. She is exerting every ounce of effort at her disposal to keep her head above water, but she still slipping under. Why is that?

One of two things are going on with the drowning woman.

#1 she is unaware that she can swim. With a few simple steps, she can learn to not drown, or,

#2 she has been shown the trick to swimming, and she doesn’t believe it will work for her.

The water is forever, but drowning in it is optional.