Week 11: Painkiller

 

 So this weeks photo was weeks in the making.  It originally started with the thought of addiction leading to only a few choices, Death, Institutions (including jail), or recovery.  And then I heard Three Days Grace "Painkiller" and the wheels started turning (In my tradition I have included the lyrics below for you to read).    It wasn't until I was up in Iowa that I began to start to flesh out the details and put the lighting diagram in my journal.  

What makes this picture special is that Ginger played a big part in helping to design and organize the details of how everything was put together and laid out.  And it happens to be, once again, one of her favorites.  

So first some disclaimers.  This picture is suppose to be disturbing.  It is meant to start dialog and conversation.  It is made to make you think.  If drugs or alcohol are not your addiction but something else in just substitute that here.  This is meant to talk about addiction regardless of what it is.  The white stuff you see is cornstarch.  I designed the label for the bottle (which use to hold cream cherry soda) and had water in it.  The pills, those are real and Ginger's who has a prescription for it.  So the picture:

 

Painkiller

 

 My addiction started because I wanted to kill the pain.  The pain of life.  I wanted to numb myself, I did not want to feel.  And so began my descent into the abyss.  My point is not that alcohol is poison, only that for an alcoholic/addict it might as well be.  And it is a game of chance.  You never know when that last one is truly your last.  The handcuff's, and Ginger is the one who saw this, talks about how the addiction puts us in a prison within ourselves.  I was thinking external prison, she was thinking internal.  As far as the white powder, pick your poison, meth, cocaine, or even china white (heroin), each will take you to a hell that getting out of is, well, hell.   And the pills, well, with the pill addiction we have these days, it is fitting to add to the mix of addiction in this photo.  Because in the end, if we continue on the ride of abusing the pills, it leads to the left, to the powder, usually heroin.  I am not saying there is not a place for medicine and for those pills.  It is the abuse of those pills that leads down into the downward spiral.   So why the picture of me?  Well, in keeping with my theme of self talk, as a recovering alcoholic/addict I am in a constant battle with that voice.  And sometimes the enemy of my soul mimics my voice to talk to me.  When things are hard, when I want to numb the pain that voice says, I can help you, I can give you what you need, I can help you kill the pain.  Because in our addiction that is what we want, to kill the pain.

Not that there is not hope.  There is.  I am living proof.  So is Ginger.  That is why these photo's mean so much to us.  They tell us how far we had gone into hell and how gracious God was to deliver us out of it.  Recovery, though not easy, is possible.  Please understand that.  It starts with one choice, the one in front of you.  Not tomorrow, not next week or next year.  And the hardest part of it, the hardest part for me, was to feel again.  To feel happiness and sorrow.  To be angry and not use.  To get frustrated and just talk about it.  To be able to express my feelings and talk no matter how messed up my feelings were.  And that is where my best friend Ginger comes in.  I can tell her anything, and I do mean anything.  I can tell her I am craving and she doesn't panic.  Because she has been there.  And she knows that a craving can stay just that, a craving not an action.  And there are others who have helped me.  And I have learned that the easiest way to kill the pain is to just feel through it.  It will pass.  I know, that voice inside you says it won't, it will last forever, but it lies, the pain will go away, and it will get better.  I know, I am a walking miracle.

So happier thoughts (For you Mom)!  So I got to work at Rebecca's this Saturday.  It had been a couple of weeks and I could not wait to get back!  It is always an adventure and there are always photos to be taken.  This was a shot that, though a little grainy, I had to take.  Those little boxes handmade, the lamp, it is Rebecca's tack room.

And since the first picture is intense, this is for my Mom.

Baa

 

 

 

 

Painkiller

Three Days Grace

 

You know you need a fix when you fall down
You know you need to find a way
To get you through another day
Let me be the one to numb you out
Let me be the one to hold you
Never gonna let you get away

The shoulder you cry on
The dose that you die on

I, I can be your painkiller, killer, killer
You'll love me till it's all over, over
'Cause I'm the shoulder you cry on
The dose that you die on
I, I can be your painkiller, killer, killer

I know what you want so desperately
You know I'll give you one for free
Forever you're coming back to me
Now I'm gonna give you what you need
'Cause I know what you fiend on and what you lean on
And what you lean on

The shoulder you cry on
The dose that you die on

I, I can be your painkiller, killer, killer
You'll love me till it's all over, over
'Cause I'm the shoulder you cry on
The dose that you die on
I, I can be your painkiller, killer, killer

Did you find another cure?
Did you find another cure?

I, I can be your painkiller, killer, killer
You'll love me till it's all over, over
'Cause I'm the shoulder you cry on
The dose that you die on
I, I can be your painkiller, killer, killer

 
Painkiller

Songwriters: Neil Sanderson / Brad Walst / Matt Walst / Johnny Andrews / Gavin Brown / Barry Stock / Doug Oliver

Painkiller lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group