the truth behind addictions

What is it like?
A question so commonly asked, yet so rarely answered.
How is one supposed to answer such a question. When you've been living this way for so long, you forget what normal is.
So here is how I would try and describe what living with depression is like:
Imagine waking up to find that your lungs are no longer capable of breathing in oxygen, just one day your body decides it wants to breath in helium instead. But how does that work? Helium is so rare and you would have to be so secluded to take in this source of life. You don't want to be an outcast and walk around with a tank of helium to suffice you with that precious intake you need. So instead you put on a smile, hold your breath and keep on keeping on. You go about your daily life, no one would suspect a thing because your so good at covering up the fact that you are struggling, that the very oxygen you used to deprive off is the thing killing you. It's like your drowning in an abundant ocean, yet to open your eyes and see everyone else breathing. That's how it feels. But of course you don't want to make a scene, you want to blend in and breathe in the sweet mechanism of oxygen into your "normal body". You don't want to put in that extra solitary effort to get something that everyone else is granted so simply and take for granted. Instead this is you. The outcast trying to blend in to a completely outcasted world. So every opportunity you get to intoxicate yourself with this helium, you take it. No matter how frowned upon it is by society, what other choice do you have? You need your saving grace, you need your weekly or even daily fix of that substance that makes you fit in. You can finally breath like everyone else in a world where breathing is seemed to be the most simplest of things. If only some people would choose to see the bigger picture rather than to be so quick to judge.
Metaphorically speaking, the oxygen is your life, happiness and society that you live in and the helium is illicit substances such as drugs and alcohol which seem to be commonly abused now a days. Well, moral of the story don't be so quick to judge someone for their decisions. Yes, it is bad to take such things but before you ridicule them perhaps take a step back open your third eye and look deeply into the persons life, and there you will find the answers you seek.