Regret Over Wasted Time and Lost Opportunities

Addicts hate themselves for the difference between what they thought they’d be and what they are. While other people, normal people, pursue life — education, relationships, careers, children — all addicts want to do is stay high.

As a result, they watch life pass them by as they waste time and squander opportunities. They wonder where the time went and are afraid they’ll look back in the future and see nothing but more lost years. And they know they waste those years even as they do it, which eats at them endlessly and adds more ammunition to all the other reasons they can’t stand themselves.

The only relief from this regret is when they’re high and they imagine some future time when they’ll get themselves together and do great things. But this is a drug-induced fantasy.

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