Aaron Hakizimana wrote the following “hate poem.” We talked about the seeming paradox of individuals both loving and hating their addiction. On the one hand, they love the feeling the drug gives them, but they loathe everything it takes away from them. While they are chasing the high, they can feel both the love and the hate to an extreme. It controls them and strips everything away from them. It is a vicious cycle. Enjoy his powerful poem and let his words sink deep into your resolve to stay clean. 


I hate you.
I hate your alluring and seductive nature.
I hate your subtle whispers, both distracting and misleading.
Your voice, offensive to the ears, yet very tempting.
A mirage is all you are, we have given you meaning; 
where in reality you have none.
Never getting enough of you, we beg and beg for more.
Chasing your promises, convinced you will deliver.
So we idolized you.
Desperately seeking comfort in your soothing melody
Saying: “Surely it is you who satisfies my grief’’
And ‘’How could I ever abandon you.”
But oh! If only we knew.
Rather we are not certain.
But certainly, you do control us. Both enticing and manipulating us as you wish.
Hindering us from our very purpose, stripping us of our ambitions;
Flicking and swaying us left and right as you please
We have willingly become your flimsy instrument of choice.
Blindly submitting to your subtle objectives, an evil objective indeed.
Self-deprived and naive, what can one do but yield.
But not me.
No! Not anymore.