Addiction and attachment are binding forces in the lives of many people. In this painting by Polish artist Pawel Kuczynski a man is drinking from a bottle with a hook that should reach closer as he drinks. In the painting the man is very dark while the bottle is portrayed in a bright light. This painting could be showing a dark time in the man’s life in which he uses alcohol as an escape. This painting also illustrates what happens when a person becomes too set in their habits and forms attachments. Some of these attachments can be harmless but I believe the painting speaks more to the ones that are harmful. The sad part about these routines is that once they are started it is hard to let go of them, just like when a fish is caught by a hook. If they are freed from attachments, the damage that can come from it will still remain. Pawel Kuczynski is considered a satirical artist that paints using serious themes. Commonly painted themes of his include social media, pollution, and politics. Though he uses these serious themes in paintings, he is considered a satirical artist for his cartoonish style.

The first topic to be addressed from the painting is drug addiction. Drug addiction is a common consequence of abusing drugs. “Abuse of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs is costly to our Nation, exacting more than $700 billion annually in costs related to crime, lost work productivity and health care” (Trends & Statistics). Drug addiction gets ugly and changes the lives of those affected by it. Drug addiction can start simply, the first time a person takes the drug they may think that it feels good or that it is fun and harmless. Sometimes it can only take one use of the drug to become hooked to the drug. After that the person is now a slave to their drug. Everything done in their life is accompanied by the drug and the money they spend on drugs interferes with their ability to pay bills and take care of a family if responsible for one. Drugs take people into a whole new world, just like a fish that is taken from the water. People who take drugs just get drawn in by the feeling they are given but that is when the hook sinks in. Drug addiction transforms from a hobby to a deadly habit. The aftermath of drug addiction can be brutal. When you catch a fish, it will struggle to try and get loose from the hook. The fish can be successful or fail and the same goes for an addict with withdrawal. Withdrawal is a process that puts many through depression and put some near death but in the end the person is better off without drugs. The hook of drugs will always leave scars on the addict.

The next topics to be addressed by Kuczynski’s painting are emotional attachments.  Nothing bad has to come from an emotional attachment unless said attachment becomes unhealthy for one or both sides of situation. Some people become emotionally attached to a person who has no interest in them. The extreme of this is the creation of a stalker, this person knows that the person they are stalking has no interest in them but, for reasons that may be psychological, continue to harass that person. The stalker has been hooked by his emotions or from their twisted mind and found it hard to let go of someone who would rather be without them. Another form of unhealthy emotional attachment comes from an abusive relationship. “IPV alone affects more than 12 million people each year” (Get the Facts and Figures). IPV stands for intimate partner violence.  Abusive relationships can either be physical or emotional but in both cases the victim may not be able to leave the relationship because of fear. In psychology this is called learned helplessness and this is the hook. The victims put themselves in danger of more harm by staying in a relationship that they are not equipped to leave. Victims also have a tendency to blame themselves for their abuse and this puts the hook even deeper. It is not the job of the victim to defend the abuser but some of the victims have convinced themselves that all of it is their fault. They are conditioned to feel lesser of themselves by the person who wants to keep them vulnerable. Many times this type of emotional attachment ends in the death of the victim. When a fish is taken from the water, it may struggle but the fish will die shortly after. On the other end, the victim is able to leave the relationship in time but the emotional scarring will still remain after they have freed themselves from abuse. It is never perfect after but in the end, it is a more preferable outcome than ending up in a news column about an abuse victim dying. Familial relationships can also become unhealthy if child abuse is present. “Every year more than 3.6 million referrals are made to child protection agencies involving more than 6.6 million children (a referral can include multiple children)” (Child Abuse Statistics). The hook in this situation is that in a lot of cases the child does not have the ability to speak up for themselves. The children are either too young to speak up for themselves or too scared. These children have the same outcomes as the victims brought up earlier in the essay, death or emotional scarring. 

The concluding topic that can be brought up by the painting is routine. Routines are a less extreme version of becoming used to something that is hard to stop. Routines can be simple or complicated. These routines can sometimes be subtle and unbeknownst to the person doing them but they are still hard to break. The hook of the routines is that they just mix seamlessly into a person’s everyday life. Routines do not usually leave as much scarring as the other attachments but the act of consciously stopping an action that has always been done automatically is challenging. Comfort causes of these routines to become worse. Sometimes people are hesitant to break routines that need to be broken because they have become comfortable in their situation. Routines are the equivalent of catching a fish and throwing it back in the water. The fish will have a minor injury but they definitely live to swim another day.  

Pawel Kuczynski said so much to me in a painting that seemed so simple. Whether he be a satirical artist or not, the issues that can be brought up by this artwork a very real. These are issues that need to be resolved in the lives of millions of people around the world. Most people probably do not realize the physical and emotional tug that they will put themselves through due to these attachments in the beginning. Later on these problems become more evident than they ever were before. For example, the addictive quality of most drugs is well documented and can be easily found by the public but many still choose to take part in them. They probably thought that it wasn’t possible for them to become an addict when in reality they became an addict as soon as they started. These hooks in life can be avoided but whether or not the time will be taken to avoid them is the key.
