Addiction

Faced with the reality that someone close has been humbled by addiction, and knowing I should have had the clarity to see and do something more, I reached a point of understanding where I decided to witness my own addictive nature and what it would mean for others, who rely upon me, if I were to truly address these weaknesses with more than just lip service.

At a younger age, when I was someone else entirely, my habits were subject to a number of substance cravings.  Drugs of some sort, alcohol, whatever I needed to change my state or distract me from my real issues.  Food was always a peripheral player in this, and the plain fact of overdoing it with food is the easiest of all.  It’s not illegal.  In fact, it is very much encouraged (since everything in this culture is monetized).  Cigarettes were another, and after 13 years of that, I was able to effectively turn the habit away (I could no longer justify the pain and expense of it).

Drugs and alcohol lost their charm as I began to take a more “spiritual” approach to life.  Not religious, mind you.  Religion is limiting, and likely would have encouraged further distraction via substance.  Whatever the distinction, I found myself left with a single addiction remaining... food.  Simple carb-Salt-Fat mixes that trigger the dopamine.  It’s an addictive mix and one people are only too happy to indulge you with.

For a private person like me, and one who has - through various life experiences and reactions worthy of a whole series of journal entries - learned to distrust and distance people from him, there is still a desire for socialization.  It’s a human need, though one’s personal threshold may vary.  Food is a great MacGuffin for getting together with others, and the resulting dopamine from the food and the interaction tend to strengthen the hold the act of eating can take.

Etc. Etc.

The point is, while I can easily speak from Uppercase Me in this journal, it’s lowercase me that’s out there, stuffing burritos, pizza, sandwiches, sugars, and so on into a sickly body.  Constantly.  Dopamine junkie.

Staying at a hotel, I am subject to the view of my body under fluorescent light when preparing for the morning shower.  Nothing is more shocking that seeing what your halogens at home have covered up.  It is not a surprise to me that I have a fat, sick body.  But under the stark lighting, I can see its sickly colors.  This negative tone is a dangerous one to internalize.  It is important to be realistic about what your choices have done to you.  But it can be counterproductive to linger on the feeling I had in that moment: is it too late?

Depression has been a constant companion in my life, and I can’t be sure whether or not it came about because of negative thoughts of my weight, or if the negative thoughts about my weight came about through depression.  I think reality is that both are true.  Worse, the notion that I let it go so far because depression has negated my joie de vivre... and a result of that is that I do nothing to fix the body because, well... why?  What is there to hang around for?  Just eat something to trigger dopamine.  Distract myself from numbness.  Create numbness by joylessness which came about as a result of self-destruction.  Catch-22.

Uppercase Me has no advice, it’s just an observer.  It wants to see lowercase me, who has access to a basic understanding of how neurotic this all is, do something besides just feed the kill-me routine.

When considering the hurt and fear I experience when I witness someone else’s addiction, somewhere inside, I am compelled to presume that someone else wants me to make the right choices.  To snap the line of addiction as I was able to with cigarettes 11 years ago.  To go into this new effort knowing that the temptations are going to surround me, constantly.  To know that years of habit - years of conditioning myself to relying on legal libations to alter my state of mind - will be popping up in my thoughts strongly and unconsciously, all the time.  To know some of the damage may be irreversible.  To know that the fate of others, whom I love, will always be outside of my control - and my reaction to this reality cannot be to drown it in carbs and fats and salt.

Long road, with every step watched and assaulted by the hobgoblins of habit.  A weak nature, in need of fundamental reprogramming, my only weapon in the fight.  With a higher purpose that has historically been repressed and anesthetized...none of this sounds any fun.  Not even a little.  But worry about someone else has made this goofy mind imagine that someone else might be worried about me as well.