Addiction is a battle a lot of people are fighting. Getting clean is celebrated by many. Relapsing is often a setback that breaks many. Starting over. That is one step that many are unable to take.
Looking around, drug addiction is a prevalent problem in my society. Honestly, it has never been this bad. What’s worse? It seems no one has an idea when this phase of drug misuse, dependence and abuse crept up on us.
I’ve always known people who did all kinds of drugs, but then it was never cool. It was done in secret. Now, it seems drugs are the I.D of the cool kids.
As for those of us lucky, privileged or blessed to not have to contend with drug addiction, many of us are still struggling with other forms of addiction.
It is easy to look at yourself and believe you are not an addict. Better still, that you are immune from addiction. But sincerely, how true is that?
Take an inventory of how you spend your time. What are the things you do that serves no profitable purpose? What is it that if you never did again in you life, would make no difference? What is that thing you’ve told yourself you won’t do again, but find yourself doing in a short while?
Are you really in charge? Can you stop doing it just like that? Are you an addict?
You see someone looking derelict. You begin to wonder, “Why doesn’t he stop? Why can’t he change? Can’t he see he is harming himself?”
The hold of addiction is such that it is easier to have never started than to quit. That’s why I often look at myself and I’m grateful I never picked some vices.
It is easy to rank vices and say this addiction is more damaging or stronger than the other. At that point, we forget the roles played by parents, teachers, guardians, friends, family, religious institutions, and other societal structures. Yet this generation is in a hurry to pull down what use to be pillars of support to our parents and us while we were growing.
Realizing that you have an addiction is not a problem. On the contrary, it is the first step towards correcting your future. Sex, quest for wealth, drugs, alcohol, relationship, search for love, game, music, movies, all of this and more are what many of us see as the necessities and sometimes pleasures of life.
Ever heard of too much of a good thing? When your desires for these things begins to outweigh your well being, when you start to rely on them to function, when you realize that the time spent on them is no longer commensurate with the pleasures derived from them, that is the time to check on yourself.
When you are able to get over an addiction, you need to live with the consciousness of preventing a relapse. And if you ever find yourself back where you do not want to be, never be scared of starting over.
As much as people are always watching what we do and having an opinion and supposition, as much as you try to please people and be the best version of you that they can have in their life, never forget, you are the number one beneficiary and victim of whatever decision or indecision you take.

Starting Over Lyrics

[Intro: Macklemore]
One, Two, now.

[Verse 1: Macklemore]
Those three-plus years, I was so proud of
Then I threw them all away for two Styrofoam cups
The irony, everyone will think that “He lied to me”
Made my sobriety so public, there’s no fucking privacy
If I don’t talk about it then I carry a date
A “08/10/08” that now has been changed
And everyone that put me in some box as a saint
That I never was, just a false prophet that never came
And will they think that everything that I’ve written has all been fake?
Or will I just take my slip to the grave?
What the fuck are my parents gonna say?
The success story that got his life together and changed
And you know, what pain looks like
When you tell your dad you relapsed and look at him directly into his face
Deceit on your shoulders, deceivingly heavy weight
Haven’t seen tears like this on my girl in a while
The trust that I once built has been betrayed
But I’d rather live telling the truth and be judged for my mistakes
Than falsely held up, given props, loved and praised
I guess, I gotta get this on the page
Feeling sick and helpless
Lost the compass where self is
I know what I’ve gotta do, and I can’t help it
One day at a time is what they tell us
Now I’ve gotta find a way to tell them
God help ’em, yeah
One day at a time is what they tell us
Now I’ve gotta find a way to tell them

[Hook: Ben Bridwell]
We fall, so hard, now we gotta get back what we lost, lost
I thought you’d gone, but you were with me all along, along

[Verse 2: Macklemore]
And every kid that came up to me
And said I was the music they listened to when they first got clean
Now look at me, a couple days sober, I’m fighting demons
Back of that meeting on the East Side, shaking, tweaking
Hope that they don’t see it, hope that no one is looking
That no one recognizes that failure under that hoodie
Just posted in the back with my hands crossed, shaking
If they call on me I’m passing, if they talk to me I’m looking
Out that door, but before, I can make it
Somebody stops me and says “Are you Macklemore?
Maybe this isn’t the place or time, I just wanted to say that
If it wasn’t for ‘Otherside,’ I wouldn’t have made it”
I just looked down at the ground and say, “Thank you”
She tells me she has nine months, and that she’s so grateful
Tears in her eyes, looking like she’s gonna cry, fuck
I barely got forty-eight hours, treated like I’m some wise monk
I want to tell her I relapsed, but I can’t
I just shake her hand and tell her, “Congrats”
Get back to my car, and I think I’m tripping, yeah
Cause God wrote “Otherside,” that pen was in my hand
I’m just a flawed man, man, I fucked up
Like so many others, I just never thought I would
I never thought I would, didn’t pick up the book
Doing it by myself didn’t turn out that good

[Bridge: Macklemore]
If I can be an example of getting sober
Then I can be an example of starting over
If I can be an example of getting sober
Then I can be an example of starting over

[Hook: Ben Bridwell]
We fall, so hard, now we gotta get back what we lost, lost
I thought you’d gone, but you were with me all along, along

[Outro: Ben Bridwell]
We fall, so hard, now we gotta get back what we lost, lost

You might be interested in these:

Song Of The Day: Macklemore Featuring Kesha – Good Old Days Glorious – Macklemore (Song Of The Day) Good Thing – Asa (Song Of The Day) High-Functioning Addict (Word For The Week)