Ofts Sand - Blog Posts

Addiction ( in only friends ) and how it impedes your perception of the situations you are in

Never thought I needed to write this but I have been seeing so many posts blaming ray and I wanted to get it out. Later if I have time I would write a dissertation about this topic because it's extremely important.

Disclaimer : Know that I am not absolving ray of his wrongdoings nor am I blaming his behaviour on other characters but we know the root of his behaviour but it seems like there is a lack of understanding.

All this is from my observations with people I know who have addiction so this is my personal experience and not me telling everyone how they should act or feel.

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Ray is a selfish person. We all know that. But so is Boston , so is mew, so is cheum. So why is ray getting the most hate. Because he is a drunkard. During ep 3 or 4 , when we saw ray at his most vulnerable , everyone was going oh poor ray. And now everyone is telling the opposite. Now I see a lot of people asking why mew and the others not taking care of him, even me. But this is why. See how easy it was for a major part of the audience to forget his addiction and completely blame ray. Now imagine if you are the one who has to deal with ray on a daily basis for two long years. It's exhausting , overwhelming and frustrating and eventually you are going to form an antipathy. My drunkard friend is not going to listen to my well intentioned warnings so why should I care. You can see it clearly in mews behaviour. Mew has given up caring.

Loved ones start giving up , because the pain the addicted one causes is too much to bear. And that is the reality of addiction. This was most clearly shown through rue from euphoria. Her mother, friends, sister cared about her but you can see the toll it creates on everyone.

Addiction is a harmful disease and one of the reason why is that it morphs the user into someone unrecognisable. Look at sober ray, his moments with sand, he's adorable, fiesty, sassy and very charming. But what he becomes when he is drunk or high is a selfish guy who doesn't care about anyone but himself.

Once again I am not blaming the entire thing on alcohol, but trying to say how that much addiction can cause one to act in ways they won't normally wont when sober.

Alcohol and drugs is ray's escape from his inner thoughts and his shitty lonely life. But he's got so dependent on it and his pain is too much that he greatly needs that buzz of happiness that alcohol and drugs gives him. He's so dependent on it that he can't be happy without it. I know that most portrayel of alcoholics have them be absolutely useless and trashed. But ray is not like that, which is even more dangerous , because he is a functional alcoholic.

And it's dangerous because it won't be clear to a lot of people about how he needs help. And more importantly it won't be clear to him about how he needs help. When ray thinks to himself all he can focus on is that he can do chores, he can talk to people normally, he can walk in a straight line, he is not an alcoholic in the way we are always shown, but he is. He is seen with drinks almost all the time, he spends the most time in a bar , he is probably walking around conscious but still drunk. And as long as he is a functional alcoholic , ray would never go or ask for help.

When you are that dependent on this , any tiny problem would have you running to escape , because the escape as an option is easy then doing the messy work of knowing when you are wrong or wronged and dealing with the emotions that come with it. We have seen ray doing it, especially when paired with mew.

When you are that dependent you don't see that you need help. To ray he is having fun, he's not miserable when he is drunk or high , when he is in that state he gets everything. So what if he is called a burden, he is still on top of the world. So when people say to him that he is an alcoholic he's confused , because he is not an alcoholic. He's having fun.

Now during ep 8 we are actually seeing him being selfish and an asshole. During ep 6 we saw him very effectively damaging his relationships. The common point between these two eps is that he is under the influence. Those are his sober thoughts but he won't say it aloud when he is sober but when he's drunk he doesn't have any inhibitions so he says everything that comes to him. Combine that with the pain of being called a burden , of unrequited love and he tries to escape from the feelings by drinking again and it forms a vicious circle. It came to a point where he lashed out and as always hurt people under the influence of something can be destructive.

I am not saying that what he did was right or the pain he caused was justifiable or should be forgiven. They shouldn't but rays feeling shouldn't be minimised too. Addiction is complex and asking for help can be a hard task. And in the case of ray I don't think he realises that he needs help. That's the problem with addicts, they don't know that the thing that's giving them happiness is the same thing that's causing them harm. Or they know but they are far too gone that they don't care.

Be it smoking , drugs or alcohol or anything else , people use it for escape but the usage becomes too much that their entire day is only fulfilled , when they get their daily dose of happiness from it. Which changes their perception to accomodate one and only one thing , the next fix, the next drink. Which is why they become selfish cause their entire world is wrapped around that bottle and everything else comes secondary.

Addiction has the potential to completely change a person. You know the person you grew up with or you know personally is somewhere inside there but what you see when they are under the influence is someone you never dreamed your loved one's can be. And it's painfull.

Another way people with addiction is dehumanised is that everyone uses them. You want a drink ? that person will always have a bottle with them, you need a fix that guy knows a person , want to have fun that person will show you a good time . I think a lot of people have heard these phrases.

For most people it's harmless fun, for the addict it's an ego boost . And it encourages them to continue that lifestyle. Which is what happened with raymew and the entire friends group in general.

They use ray but they are willfully blind to the harm that causes him. Mew was the one who wanted to try smoking, coke and party, ray never forced him, because for ray that is his happy place. Substances is the one thing that gives him happiness, he does not have the capacity to stop or think of it as wrong.

To ray , mew has finally chosen him, he is finally doing the things he loves. He's not going to stop mew from doing anything when he thinks he finally getting what he always wanted. Ands it toxic and it's not right but that's the reality of an addict.

And he should be happy about it but he isn't because he needs sand. And that is what confused him to spiral further and ignore his emotions and snort coke. Because that's the best thing he can do, run away.

Why is sand so important to ray ? I said in an another post that sands generosity is out of the ordinary. He's mature for his age in a way that makes me feel like he has known an addict before.

And ray needs that. He doesn't need enablers. he needs someone to physically stop him from taking it. Or atleast make him realise that what he is doing is dangerous. And sand is the one who's going to do it.

Thing is it's not sand's job to do it. But till ep 8 he was choosing to be that person. Saying that ray is forcing sand to do something is just taking away the agency from sand. He's not a kid. He's making his own decisions.

And if he is helping him it won't be an easy journey. If they are bringing the addiction rehab plot line into the show then I could see a scene happening that is reminiscent of the car chase scene from euphoria.

Sand and his generosity.

Sand is a great character and I find it interesting that even though he did a crime, is actively doing another crime the majority of the fandom is behind him being such a good guy, and he is. But it got me thinking. Why is he so generous towards ray?

Now 14 yr old me would have instantly said true love but now I know a lot more. Something about his care for ray feel so familiar. Like he knows exactly what to do with someone like ray, on the verge of an alcoholic spiral 24/7.

The first few episodes we see them connecting but even if they did connect more then the other couples, there was something huge missing. Sand didn't know the extend of rays addiction. And then we see sand processing it and then top comes barging in and derails him and the entire trainwreck that resulted and sand had understood just how gone ray is. That boy needs rehab asap.

But sand goes after him, he saves him, he takes care of him, he bends to his every whim and is happy to do so, only to be tossed aside. And it's in the way he takes care of him. He knows how to take care of a drunk person , he knows how to be gentle with them , he knows how to scold them without coming across as demeaning or prejudice. He has the patience of someone who's already dealt with circumstances like these. Of taking care of a loved one who is an addict.

You can see it in the way he doesn't bring up the outburst. He bought up the drunk driving because it has the potential to cause lasting harm. But an outburst in a bar will be just that an outburst. Sand doesn't know that ray had told mew about topton, but he doesn't give the outburst much thought when ray had attacked him directly. And that's where I think he knows what to except from an outburst from an addict and is choosing to not take it personally. And that level of insight is not typical in a 20 something college kid , even if the college kid works in a bar , because ray targeted him specially. Nobody would have blamed him if he didn't go, heck rays friends who he have known for years didn't go but sand a recent acquaintance went.

Now it can be said that sand has seen the good side of ray, and he has. When it comes with dealing with addicts most people focus on changing the bad side and forget about the good side. But sand didn't , he saw the good side, liked it and is trying to get that back. That smile in the bathtub, he thought he was getting it back. But then he saw raymew dancing and that look is so interesting. Because there's no anger, there's sadness, and heartbreak and disappointed. And there's resignation. He predicted it would happen and it did.

He wasn't disappointed with ray, he was disappointed in himself. He was dealing with an addict, trying to save him when the person doesn't want to be saved. Something he has done before. Something he so familiar with he was anticipating the heartbreak when he and ray had hooked up. It's exactly like playing with fire.

So why did he jump right in when he knows the pain, because it's familiar to him.

So who's this person who has given sand the experience with working with addicts . Either his mom who's the closest person we have seen to him or his ex.

Imagine if it was his ex , someone he loved , cared for and has helped with a recovery process but then top comes and takes him away. By using drugs.

Which would explain why sand is so mad at him , why he insisted that top stole him.

Sand saw the good side with his ex , helped him get back and all that was tossed away for the next fix that top had with him. And he fought tooth and nails for him , but the ex chose his next fix and not him.

Then his eyes fell on a boy similar to his ex , who's also going through addiction and sand wants to help him since it's so familiar. And he knows it's a bad idea and he is watching the exact same thing happen away and this time he's so resigned and too tired too fight.

His generosity is not just because he's a good person , it's because he's used to it, it's because it's familiar to him.