Hiding an addiction is like a sloppily-made bed. On a passing glance, it may appear clean. But if one looks any closer, one sees the lumps and crooked valleys undulating the blanket’s topography, the blurry haste or haphazardness with which it dares call itself "made". The same principle carries for the addicted – on a passing glance, their lives can appear made, neat even. But if one takes care to look any closer, one can’t help notice the wrinkles or unevenness, the erratic peculiarities that appear too consistently to smooth out into the periphery.

The frightening thing about addiction is the way it transforms, or dissolves, one’s points of reference. It’s not unlike floating aimlessly in the open ocean, no land, no landmarks, no boats. While most gauge their passage through life with reference to the people around them – spouse, family, friend, colleague – the addict’s point of reference becomes the chemical departure itself, and the scurried spaces in between. That is addiction. And like the open ocean, it is unforgiving, chillingly elemental, no end in sight. It leaves the addict wondering how a weekend jaunt on a friend’s sailboat became a nomadic life of Cain: forever thirsty, forever wandering, and forever mocked, by the universal expanse of water that cannot be consumed, that only consumes.