"Addiction: Have you or someone you know ever had a problem with substance abuse? Do you/they now? Tell us about this experience." Is the topic this week on Peices Of You so I thought I'd say what I have to say, even if it isn't what's supposed ot be written... this is my first time writing after all...

To me addiction has always been something I've feared, all my life I've had a deep set fear of relying on something (or someone) other than myself, and because of that I've always really avoided drugs. I used to be really anti them and I judged anyone who so much as took a joint when it was passed to them, but that was before I developed my own dirty little addiction. Granted, it wasn't to a substance, it was to blood and pain, but it allowed me to understand more about the working of an addict's mind. I know now what it's like to know that something is so bad for you and could so damn easily but needing it anyway. And now I don't judge addicts, I don't automaticlly think of them as stupid low life's, no, I feel empathy for them now... Empathy in the smallest possible way, like empathy of someone who knew someone who's daughter died to someone who's daughter did die, but empathy none the less. Some, most, people can't just live as they are, we all need something else, you don't judge people who's something else is another person, so why judge people who's something else is drug?

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So that's what I thought of when I saw the topic but I don't know if it's right, like, the other people who have put things in wrote things about people they actually know who have addictions to drugs/ alcohol... But it's what I think, someone tells me if it's wrong.

Lauren