Margie Creen

I am addicted. Hopelessly, pathetically, eternally addicted. There is no 12-step cure for me.

Every night I go through the same ritual.

I arrive home. Mindlessly, I grab a Diet Coke and a box of Wheat Thins. I move slowly towards the sofa. I try and fight it.

I distract myself momentarily, but then it happens: I envision pure ecstasy and it’s so close.

I drop my beverage and snack. The sound awakens me from my trance and I force my mind away from elation. My addiction calls me, begging me to have just one hit, but I make myself think of something else.

“OK, $54.33 is due by Nov. 15,” I think to myself, feeling my body crave the pleasure, “It’s due… by? November?”

“No!” my conscience screams, no don’t do it! Once you start, you know you can’t have just one!”

“Yes, I can,” my inner voice responds, “I can stop whenever I want to.”

“Margie!” cries my conscience, “Don’t do it! Look! You need to pick up your clothes off the floor!”

My conscience wins the battle and I bend down to pick up my jeans and sweatshirt. I turn, holding tightly to the fabric, thinking of the spoon that holds my boiling happiness. I know I must have it.

The clothes fall to the floor. I pick up my pop and crackers and step towards my craving, aching to feel bliss through my soul.

“Stop!” my conscience yells to no avail, “You can’t!”

“Oh, yes I can,” my inner voice says menacingly, “Just watch.”

I walk towards my destination, my conscience and inner voice fighting the entire way, screaming at each other, arguing, one trying to stop the inevitable, the other feeding encouragement like a john to his whore.

I plop on the sofa and flip open my laptop. My conscience knows it has lost the war as I prepare myself for the unavoidable.

There, amidst the entire Microsoft Office program, sits Galaxy of Games, containing no less than four dozen different Solitaires, all varying slightly, but still needing only one player to achieve the ultimate high.

I open the program and begin. I inhale deeply the smoke that filters out of it. I am sucked in. I have gotten that first sharp, snort of computer cocaine and I am hooked.

I play and I lose. I play again and I lose. I play, play, play till I don’t think I can take anymore and I curl up in a ball in my own filth and I vomit, sobbing, shaking uncontrollably.

“See,” says my conscience, softly, “I told you couldn’t have just one.”

“So,” replies my inner voice, “I can play more. It will make the problems go away.”

I sit up slowly and click again on “New Game.”

I inject solitaire into my bruised arm. I suck on the game, tasting the bitter, awful flavor.

I swallow it down and I see the cards parade in front of my eyes, taunting me and laughing.

I stand on the edge of a cliff, and then I leap off, I fly away, I dance with the kings and never come back and then I orgasm.

I am taken. I am done.

Today I gave in and tomorrow I shall quit.

I reassure myself of this as I take another sip of failure, allowing the sweet elixir to drive me to the brink of madness while endlessly clicking eights onto nines, never giving up the feeling that tomorrow will be the last.

Tomorrow I shall be clean. Tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow.

Magie Creen is a junior journalism major and English minor.

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