OPENING — WHERE THE MASK CRACKS AND THE TRUTH SHOWS THROUGH

Look closely at someone who drinks too much.
Not at the bottle, not at the jokes, not at the noise around them.
Look beneath it.

Look at the moment the laughter dies.
Look at the stillness between sips.
Look at the eyes that say, "Please don't look too closely."

Because here is the truth:

It's a pathetic make-up for a good time.

Not pathetic because they are pathetic —
but because life once hit them so hard
that they learned to hide their wounds behind noise and numbness.

People think addiction starts with the bottle.
It doesn't.
Addiction starts in childhood.
In memories that never softened.
In nights that taught a child to survive instead of sleep.

And when something painful from childhood resurfaces,
remember this:

It is perfectly normal to react to old wounds.

If you didn't react, that would be abnormal.
Your reactions are human, not broken.**

Because when trauma gets triggered,
you don't act your age —
you act the age the wound was created.

The adult disappears.
The child steps forward.

And the addiction?
It's just an attempt to quiet the child who still hurts.

Here are seven truths everyone should know.

1. Addiction begins when a child learns emotions are dangerous.

When a child is punished for crying,
ignored for needing,
or silenced for speaking —

their body learns one message:
"Feeling is unsafe."

That's when numbness becomes survival.
Long before alcohol or drugs,
the child already knows how to disappear.

This reaction is not abnormal.
It's the most normal response to emotional danger.

2. The walk home from school teaches addiction before adulthood ever arrives.

Some children walk home slowly,
dragging fear behind them.

Not knowing which version of "home" they will meet.

And when they drink years later,
it isn't celebration —
it's medication.

A nervous system shaped by fear
stays wired for survival.

Reacting to old memories is normal.
Anyone would.

3. Some wounds freeze in time — they don't grow, they wait.

A person collapses over something small
and people say,
"You're overreacting."

But it's not overreaction.
It's overremembering.

The wound never learned the passing of time.
Your reaction is the child inside you responding —
and that child is still real.

This is normal.
Human.
Expected.

4. Addiction is not escape — it's repetition of the only strategy childhood allowed.

A child escapes by hiding.
An adult escapes by drinking.
Same wound.
Same impulse.
Same logic:
"I can't handle this alone."

Not abnormal —
beautifully, tragically human.

5. The hill is full of adults carrying child-sized wounds.

The Boys from the Hill grew older
but carried their loneliness with them.

They laugh loudly because quiet feels dangerous.
They raise bottles like shields.
They sit together because being alone feels like childhood all over again.

These reactions are normal.
They make sense.
Anyone hurt early reacts strongly later.

6. Addiction is want — want for rest, want for safety, want for the childhood that never happened.

People believe addicts want pleasure.
No.
They want:

• quiet,

• rest,

• a moment without fear,

• a break from the noise inside.

That want is not abnormal.
It's human.
It's survival with its hands shaking.

7. Addiction becomes dangerous only when the original wound is ignored.

We blame the bottle.
We blame the behavior.
We blame the person.

But the wound?
No one looks at it.

Yet that wound created everything.

Reacting to pain is normal.
Carrying pain alone is unbearable.

ENDING — THE DICKENS MOMENT

In every Dickens story,
there comes a moment where the hidden suffering steps into the light
and the reader finally understands:

They were never weak.
They were wounded.

And that is the truth here.

Addiction doesn't begin with the bottle.
It begins in the childhood that taught you to survive.

Your reactions are not abnormal —
they're proof you lived through something real.

You can take off the make-up now.
You can stop pretending you're fine.
You can react, cry, shake, feel —
it is all normal.

Because the wound is finally being seen.

Thank you for reading.
If this reached you in any way,
I'm glad you were here.

Best wishes,
Raymond and Ken

I'm not judging anyone in this situation, and I'm not looking down on people who drink.
No way.
I've been a heavy drinker myself — I've been all the way down, and luckily, I made it back.

What we're trying to do here is simple:
to help someone realise that addiction won't wait.
It will take everything from you if it isn't treated.

So please — talk to someone.
A doctor.
A mental health worker.
A nurse.
A friend.
A hospital.
Anyone.

Just don't sit alone with it.
There's help, and there's hope. Ken