Before my journey as a warrior for the fleeting glory of the Imperium, before I paced countless streets as a call girl in combat boots, the wasted waters of want baptized my pagan blood. I was unceremoniously bestowed the affection of ghostly parents in the form of a merciless genetic predisposition to dependence on chemical concoctions; I was cradled and nurtured by the synthetic molecular love from the amphetamine, as she pushed into my veins, surrogate of a missing matriarch. I was taught to think through mad fungus visions, and guided towards my father’s fate by the clumsy hand of the holiest of spirits; when all others had abandoned me, Marijuana brought my consciousness back to the land of the living – If only for a short stay. Caroline Knapp, author of, “Love” captures in great detail the passage of life, with all its nuances, from the perspective of one who too was a follower of the chemical commandments. In a similar way, Octavia Butler, author of “Bloodchild” informs readers to the torturous sequentiality of addiction and inhibition forbidding any expansion to the user’s reality or existence. Both stories speak the enslavement a human mind bears under the influence of our temptations, and while there are striking surface differences between the two stories, these works may have more in common than not, when observed from the perspective of an ex-user, and interpreted for the unaltered mind.

Our vices become the undertow of life’s actuality, creating a current that carries dreams away, diluting aspirations and drowning hope. This is true for the “…nice person, from a[n]…upper-middle-class family” (Knapp 1466) the narrator of “Love” describes herself as; with the mirror casting its unapologetic reflection of truth back to her eye, a glimmer of sanity shining through to the synapsis of the narrator’s sober sense causing her to question “What happened?” (Knapp 1466) That same chemical current flows behind the conscious thoughts of Gan as he studies his mother’s perplexing choice to abstain from the inebriating compounds of Tilc eggs, “content to age before she had to.” (Butler 1533) and deny herself a pleasurable cerebral escape from the preserve, and their Terran status as commodities. Gan, and the narrator of “Love,” could never fathom existence as the other, yet both tales suggest no matter what pasts we claim, or lives we live, the solution of substances will continue to dictate our consciousness until we find a reason to question the logic of our choices and transcend the bindings of our current chemistry.

Even our means with which to scratch out an existence are saturated by the torrent of tribulation brought on by our escapes. The narrator of “Love” attempts to place rules on her alcoholic deluge, “…never [drinking] at work…except for [the occasional] glass of wine” (Knapp 1466) during lunches spent in a Chinese restaurant across from her nameless office. This could be the life lived by a countless number of our comrades in chemistry; a proclamation of allegiance to the state of indulgence, in blaring silence for all to witness. Gan, presumably like most Terrans of his time, has that same propensity to dependency on mind-altering concoctions. His essence surely starved for a change to the crushing reality of being a “host” to Tilc “grubs,”(Butler 1540) thus serving as an integral piece of alien reproduction — carrying on the lineage of human oppression. So often do we allow ourselves to be defined by our professions, but the undercurrents addicts subject themselves to will never allow us to be anything more than the time spent between confessions to the compounds that ensnare us.

Users have many versions of reality, and just as many rituals to cope with their drunken divinity. Knapp writes of addiction as “…a kind of liquid glue that gums up all the internal gears and keeps you stuck.” A deep devotion to the serenity of detachment keeps “Love[‘s]”narrator from truly committing to a life without her proofed salvation. To much the same, Butler suggests characters in “Bloodchild”, including, Gan are “Unwillingly Obedient… [to] a waking dream” (Butler 1537) induced by the liquid from un-gestated larva of the Tilc. When it is more painful to be awake, than asleep, the consequence of full consciousness is a tortured soul that repents for its sins of sobriety. Addicts practice a complex religion of disconnected moments and lay the solid foundation for a life lived as such, due mainly to the lack of a more fulfilling purpose —and the permanence of death (or a life spent preparing for it).

As with all other surface differences like age or gender, the environments our stories take place in hold little value to which the characters of these testaments — or flesh and blood addicts —  are able to deny the thirst for their vice of choice. The Narrator of “Love” states “I drank when I was happy…I drank when I was depressed, which was often.” (Knapp 1463) Whether at her parents’ house in Cambridge, their home in Martha’s Vineyard with its fresh seaside breezes, or alone in her apartment, she feels that deep urge to dink, and escape. Gan feels that same urge to “sit and dream” (Butler 1536) even when, Bram Lomas, a fellow Terran from the preserve becomes N’Tilc, as the Tilc larva he carries attempts to devour their host. Gan is taken hostage by his fear of the tangible universe, and nearly crippled by a dependence to the lucidity of the eggs, but rises to the occasion and helps to save lives. Molecular addiction surpasses any variances between us; the social constructs that define us, have little to do with the ferocity at which we commit to chemicals, being that we are all just slight variations of the same brain and body.

Few certainties exists in the lives of the dutifully drugged, but our truth remains that restfulness is not common to those that have un-known life. The regret of the ages can be almost heard, or tasted, when every detail is paid tribute from the mouths of those who have forced themselves to savor the bitterness of a life lived for the sake of surviving to the next high. I cherish the hardships and insanity the chemical clergy brought to my life, I developed a clarity about my purpose, and became able to empathize with the suffering in others and offer empty words of organic comfort and comradery. To much the same end, these testaments to the user, “Love” and “Bloodchild” both stand, lamenting the desperation at which addicts franticly grasp at the threads of reality, wanting both to lose touch, while not becoming completely lost and swept out to sea by the ever-receding tide of chemical dependence.