An Addict Sestina

[I've been using Robert Lee Brewer's prompts for his November PAD Chapbook Challenge. His suggestion for the poem written November 6th (these are posted the next morning) is "For today’s prompt, write an addict poem." What does he think I do with ALL his prompts? Oh. Okay. He's writing more more than just me. So I'll use the sestina format to make it a challenge.]

No one sets out to become an addict
but a sense of comfort yields to habit
and comfort feels required, makes it hard
to spurn the flimsy solace, to face fear
in minutia or in watershed moments, its power
rooting, swelling, no thought of needing recovery.

Who could eschew coziness for recovery
when the ideal fun and chums make "addict"
a concept not even on the radar, for the power
of the use may at times nag, may seem bad habit,
but the usefulness to stave off surges of fear
means letting go of it is too darned hard.

Time comes, though, when stopping's not just hard
but flat-out impossible, when dreaming of recovery
begins to creep in, when what once forestalled fear
now haunts, now burdens, now burns the word "addict"
into the synapses and the loudest roar can't stop the "habit"
from barging in, taking over, zapping creation's power.

And all control is there, in the substance, in the fear – the power
surely will never again be yours, you can't grab on hard
to the comfort, the solace once swaddled in the habit
but now the despised talk of the rooms of recovery
no longer feels childish, as admitting to being an addict
actually brings release, no need to be enslaved by fear.

And that little word is truly an evil and corroding tread, fear,
causing mighty trouble – but reviewed, put on paper, the act saps power
so fear can be examined, turned over by the vilest addict
who dares to ask a greater power to remove the fear, a hard
step – daring to ask – but the doing it, we've heard witness, gives recovery
in place of the vilest and most derelict old pattern of habits.

Change is occasionally sudden, sometimes gradual, but habit
does give way to a pattern of life free from paralyzing fear —
a tapestry woven into life depicting the glorious state of recovery,
leading on, a gentle hand on our shoulder, or around us, a Power
that assures us wordlessly, silently, but completely it's not hard
to set aside the substance, no matter how many years await the addict.

The door swings open, habit changing from problem to power
in facing uncertainty, yielding fear to a Power whose way is never hard
but guarantees to those who seek recovery they'll nevermore act as addict.