A Comparison: The Fear of Being Without

Considering that when something is too good to be true, it normally is, compare this analogy of a girl's life before and after a witch's potion to an addict's life before and after substance abuse:

Nancy was always afraid of heights, grew excited when holdidays approached, jumped over loud bumps or thuds in the night, and could remember being nervous when first obtaining her drivers' license. She was a normal, patriotic, happy girl. Her life was full of smiles and laughter, family and fun-filled summers year after year.

One day, however, Nancy met a strange, old woman while hiking through the woods. The woman smiled and was kind to Nancy, and told her that she could make her life extremely happy. She told Nancy she could give her a happiness that would last all day, every day, and that she would never be afraid of anything, ever again. She said she could teach her to fly without fear.

At first, of course, Nancy was skeptical, but the more the old woman spoke, the more intrigued Nancy became. Her curiosity won, and the old woman gave Nancy a small bottle of sweet liquid. Nancy tasted it, and immediately was changed. She felt like a superhero. She drank the liquid, and soared high above the tree tops, across her home town, above the clouds, flying without fear, dipping and diving and laughing as she never had before.

This new happiness was something she never had known before, and had never even heard about. She never knew such happiness was possible before tasting the old woman's liquid.

For a while, Nancy visited the old woman on a regular basis, and the old woman told her the liquid would be available forever. Nancy created her whole life around it, becoming another person entirely.

Then one day, Nancy could not find the old woman. She searched everywhere for her, going days without even stopping to rest, looking and calling out to her. She realized the woman was gone, and with her, the magical, beautiful liquid. She dropped to her knees in the forest and felt as if she would die.

What would life be like, now? Where was the joy? How could she fly so high and so far, then just sit in an existence that held nothingness? The comparison of how happy she had been with the liquid to the reality of lifelessness without it was just too much for her to bear. She lay there in the woods and died, choosing death as a far better alternative to facing a reality of bitter depression.

And when facing a life without drugs, an addict feels and experiences the same fears, the same loss of hope for the future. Of course, with enough clean time (the period of time an addict experiences without substances), a natural joy for life will return, and hope for the future will come again.

Drugs? Not even once.