Maybe it’s because my life revolves around words, but when I came across this wordless animated short about addiction, it stopped me dead in my tracks. The five-minute video, entitled Nuggets, was created in 2014 by German animator Andreas Hykade. Its stark, simple message about what it feels like to be caught in the cycle of addiction resonated with me on several levels.
This Little Bird Is Me!
I kicked heroin 15 years ago after struggling with drugs and alcohol for a decade. I write about recovery for a living and I’m raising an extremely verbal toddler. This means I spend many days engaged entirely in nonsensical two-year old conversations, preschooler cartoons and my own silent musings about addiction and recovery. So, this video hit a sweet spot for me. Judging from its more than 10 million views on YouTube, I’m not the only one.
The story revolves around the journey of a solitary kiwi bird and opens with the flightless bird trudging alone along the black line that signifies its life. The kiwi comes upon the first golden blob or “nugget” in its path, steps around it and keeps walking, looking over its shoulder curiously. After a little while, it comes to a second nugget and stops to investigate. And, after some poking and prodding of the strange substance, the kiwi inserts its beak and inhales the golden blob.
The Phases of Addiction
This first sequence perfectly represents my own early days of using drugs and countless other stories I’ve heard. For all of us, there seemed to be a common thread of isolation, like the lone kiwi bird. I’m a true believer that some people are born addicts. We feel different and alone from the time we are little kids, long before we ever inhale out first golden nugget of…whatever. Then, most of us have a period of time in the beginning when we use casually. Maybe we avoid the hard stuff at first or we only do it with our friends. We tell ourselves we can just keep walking—take it or leave it. To me, that’s kiwi’s first encounter with the golden nugget. Then, for addicts, there comes a time when we just give in.
After the kiwi inhales the nugget, bliss ensues. The plain white flightless bird blushes a lovely shade of pale yellow and lifts off the ground. After a lazy twirl in the air, kiwi gently comes down. A little farther along its path, another golden nugget appears. The kiwi greedily sucks it up. Another hazy, golden flight ensues, followed by a little bumpier landing. Kiwi’s next flight is shorter still and the crash landing leaves a mark. Kiwi shakes it off, now hurtling toward the next nugget.
The Heroin Honeymoon Phase
The first time I did heroin, I felt like that kiwi after snorting its first nugget. It was like I finally found the secret password, the magic code that I had always needed to feel okay. All the great things were better and all the shitty things somehow faded until I couldn’t remember why they sucked in the first place. Even heroin has a honeymoon phase. Many, many times I managed to get away with being high enough to feel good while still gently landing on my feet when it came to maintaining school, work and relationships. But eventually, like the kiwi, my moments of bliss were more fleeting and the comedowns started to leave marks.
As the bird tromps along from nugget to nugget, the flights become briefer, sometimes barely lifting off, and ultimately hitting the ground a little harder every time. Instead of being able to shake off the crash landings, the bumps and bruises become disfiguring. At last, looking beat up and hunch backed, our protagonist can barely shuffle across a darkened backdrop. Kiwi comes to the last nugget and stands, contemplating.
A Child’s Wisdom
Watching this part of the video with my kid, I asked him what was happening. His reply was, “bird bounces on its bottom.” That’s exactly what I did for the last four years of my active addiction. The consequences were mounting, the physical impact was impossible to ignore and still, I couldn’t stop. I would hit a particularly rough patch. Like the time I got robbed at knifepoint on the way home from scoring dope (no biggie, he just wanted my cash) or had to spend the weekend detoxing in jail after running a red light. But I just kept bouncing on my bottom. I would take a few days to clean up and rest up, score some methadone pills or do just the minimum amount of dope to keep from getting sick. But the next time a nugget crossed my path, I would hurl myself at it in spite of my bumps and bruises.
Until it all became too dark and I was completely broken. In the final scene, the kiwi faces the nugget in indecision. It’s the turning point. We will probably never know how the artist envisioned happening next—and that’s exactly why it’s so brilliant. It’s subject to the interpretation of the viewer. In my mind, the kiwi ignored that nugget and dragged its broken ass to a meeting.
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