Kill yr Idols: Notes on Faith, Drugs, and Loss

Written by Cian Thomas Ennis. Photography by Liz Hunt

TW: mentions of death and addiction

“I was afraid to be alone, and afraid of the dark, and afraid to go to sleep because of dreams where a supernatural horror seemed always on the point of taking shape. I was afraid some day the dream would still be there when I woke up. I recall hearing a maid talk about opium and how smoking opium brings sweet dreams, and I said: “I will smoke opium when I grow up””

- William S. Burroughs in Junky

The great emancipatory force that freed me from the constraints imposed by a religious grand narrative, was my proximity to the death of a Catholic. I am lucky enough to still breathe the stale air that was once spat out by the dead. My introduction to life, and my understanding of it coincides with my comprehension of its ephemerality. This vicious correlation bred in me a savage nihilism. Religion satiated such a rabid animal, but as my family dropped like flies, that feral dog broke free.

I do not wish to propagate some atheistic belief that this newfound freedom granted me any semblance of real liberty. I was forced out of the intoxicating smoke of reassurance, into a realisation. I no longer need to worry about going to hell, but where was I to go? I was granted the dizziness of freedom, with no real moral code to abide by. I could immerse myself in whatever sinful behaviour that I deemed appropriate. No matter what actions I undertake, I will end up in the same position as my most devout neighbour, in the soil with the worms. How does one respond to such a realisation? How can one come to terms with seeking answers in a world that simply is not willing to provide them? How was I supposed to reconcile the death of a loved one when that death was as meaningless as the plethora of deaths that preceded it. My answer as I sobered from the religious opium, was the equally damaging grand narrative of hedonistic nihilism. The syrupy stupor of overconsumption.

My desires ultimately stemmed from the vacuum the abandonment of Catholicism left in my life. To put it succinctly, a lack became present. There was no heaven left to turn to, thus all those I loved were simply rotting. The lack that stems from the death of someone you love is an object permanence, an absence which never can again become a presence. This lack can only be gratified, through the pursuit of desire, and desire is an insatiable force that always leaves one thirsty. The hedonistic nihilist understands that their thirst never shall be quenched, but regardless of the futility, they in many ways courageously sprint towards the pleasure principle. The hedonistic nihilist does not seek attainment in one’s life, rather it seeks disintegration. Disintegration allows all broader philosophical worries to be pushed to the wayside, so that fixations can be placed on the attainment of the object that fills one’s soul with glitter and gold.

Now, enough with the waxing poetic, let us try to reach the crux of the matter.

I recall, when I was around ten years old, approaching my mother in tears to ask if God was real. I had been in the midst of agony the two days prior as I collected the courage to approach her. I was battling doubts. Solace was not granted to me. All that I could take note of in her eyes was anguish and confusion. Her faith, too, was waning.

My cousin died of brain cancer at the age of twenty. He was rightly being remembered as the angel he was. This was the kind of man, who regularly ate with his mother on his work lunch breaks. These actions of pure innocent beauty enlarged his presence within the family, until he took on the mantle of a messianic martyr. After his death, my mother, and the other adults I had looked to in my life for guidance, could provide no such thing. They had fallen from the heights of a grand narrative, and injured themselves in the process. What kind of grand plan can a benevolent God have if he is willing to take the wonderful from this earth? Only a greedy deity engages in such theft. In the eyes of those who I held dearest, all the goodness in the world was buried with him. I was left unanchored, and I drifted out of the harbour. There was no lighthouse to show me the way home. The sea was raging. A rock penetrated the hull of my boat. Water rushed in, and all I could do was tape it over.

Why did he drown, and I am still afforded the opportunity to tread water?

I emerged from the storm more phantom than man, both alive and dead. Condemned to sail the seven seas on the Flying Dutchman. Never again will I see land. I had been asked to transcend my mourning to continue on with whatever shite that was required of me as a child, but playing becomes an arduous task, when one of your kin has fallen from Eden.

I continued to age, and as I reached my teenage years, I still often thought of him. He would visit me in my dreams. Haunting me. I began to believe that God had made some bureaucratic error. It was I, the fatally flawed, who was the intended death. My death warrant had effectively been signed, I was simply an inmate on the night before their execution. I was bewitched by lack, and rather than suppress desire, I let it guide me. My new idol. The false prophet. The sweet narcosis of drugs and alcohol.

This foray into attempting to replace God culminated on the eve of my twentieth birthday. My friends and I copped a bag, and hopped the gate into my old primary school. I was the age my cousin was when he was consumed. I was marching my childhood self to the gallows, enraptured by the allure of the death drive. There was no revelatory experience that accompanied such transgressions against myself, yet this was the point which urged me to climb from the dark well I had been hiding in. I saw a glimmer of light at the entrance. The tiniest of glimmers. So faint and so weak. Emitting the strangest flame.

My baby cousin visited my house the next day. He was the same age I was when the haunting began. I would not do such a thing on him. How could I engage in such pointlessly destructive behaviour to suppress my own apparitions, when I was ready and willing to become his? The cycle must be put to an end. I have no desire to continue this ghostly inheritance.

God, and greed and ghosts are simply desires utilised to ratify a lack. They are false idols that must be denounced. Prophets that only bring with them plague. One can only engage in hedonistic nihilism after their fall. I no longer intend to perpetuate grand narratives of Jesus and liquor, for if you are drunk at the cathedral, to slip is to crack your head open and become a saint.