I aquired a new insecurity lately. Would you believe that I'm insecure about my sobriety of all things? I've told various people that I believe it's better to experience authentic pain or suffering than to use substance to avoid the pain. Multiple people have called me a masochist for that.

How the hell am I supposed to argue with that? Suppose someone just goes "nah, you aren't sober because you like authenticity like you are always saying. The real reason you are sober because you just really like suffering and punishing yourself. I'm glad I'm not a freak like you!" Is there anything I could even say or do to disprove that?

There are so many ways I could turn their argument back on them. Oh yeah? What if someone you loved died? Would you want to feel bad about it? Or is it better to be glad that they died? Or even to not give a shit at all? If you could take a drug which made it so you didn't greave over a loved one's death then would you take it? Here's another one. What if you could feel perfect, non-addictive bliss with no health problems and no side effects and all you had to do was torture and kill an innocent person? (The drug would also take away any feelings of built about it afterward.) Would you kill that person?

I refuse to use those arguments however. Partly because I believe that analogies are always bad. And partly because those are really personal questions; asking about the death of a loved one is pretty insensitive, and my own insecurity doesn't make it right to stomp on other people's feelings like that. I should stomp on their feelings in a different, better way.