Allaholic?

We're all ___aholics.

Addiction has been defined as “a state of being dependent on a certain substance, which is harmful or dangerous for the physical or mental health of the person, for his social well-being and economical functioning of the subject”. When you type the word ‘addiction’ into popular search engines, you find links for various substance dependence sites. When I sift through these sites, I find little information that is helpful to me; yet, almost daily I find myself making decisions that are bad for me- decisions that are harmful for my physical or mental health for my social well-being and economical functioning. I am not taking hits of crack or lighting any pipes. My drugs are not nearly so obvious to pinpoint. They do not come in powder nor plant form. My drugs are daily decisions that I make. Decisions to which I keep running back. I know they are bad for me, but they are so beautiful in the moment, and I am irresistibly compelled toward these decisions. Since no one is over my shoulder telling me that what I have is an addiction that is may be akin to a drug addiction, and that the cycles in which I find myself are not much different than the cycles of many other addicts, I find myself going around the same mountain over and over again.

Let me give you an example. When I was 21, I was dating this guy named Alan. When Alan introduced himself, he said, “I work with computers”. I think, “Oh, a computer programmer! That’s a good job!” Turns out, Alan was a receptionist who happened to work in front of a computer. I should have gone running in the other direction from this obvious lying loser, but, unfortunately I did not. The first night we hung out was a blast. He was buying my friends and I rounds of drinks, we were hitting the dance floor hard, and he was telling me how excited he was to meet such an obviously smart and beautiful girl. He got my digits. “I’ll call you tomorrow” he promised at the end of the night. I did not hear from him the next day. I felt a little sad, but I accepted the rejection with dignity. This time. You see, I was not yet hooked. Alan eventually called with some excuse about how his dad had stopped by, and he had gotten in a fight with him and just could not talk afterward, but he added that he hoped I would please give him another chance. I did. This interchange pretty much made up our whole relationship. Sometimes the excuses were better than others. One time he actually told me he could not hang out with me because he had to help his friend clean a deer. But we went round and round this cycle for over a year. When we had a good time, it was so good. So fun. He was so attentive to me, so nice to my friends, so good at conversation and affection. But I could not have him. It would not last. And he kept me coming back and back for more. Each time I came back I had less dignity. I sacrificed more of myself. I planned my life around trying to “run” into him. I thought about him all the time. Drama from the relationship made my work suffer. Looking back there was so little real substance to our “relationship”. I was an addict seeking the next high. The next escape from my life. My reality. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I need to make sure you understand something right away. I am not an expert on addiction, and this blog is not intended to cover addiction research or literature. It will be a personal exploration of my addicitions which is intended to make you smile at points, to make you think at points, and to propose a view on life decisions that may help shape yours. As a natural observer and introspector, I have observed my repeated bad decisions (and those of my friends) and wondered why we continue to make the decisions that we do. I hope that you benefit from this blog as I know that these thoughts have greatly improved my decision making, and allowed me to be a good friend to others to help them make better decisions. I hope to be a friend to you as well. Because everyone needs a friend sometime to smack some sense in to them about their addictive habits.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Relapse Reflections

So, tonight's one of those nights where I had the opportunity to see my addiction in its truest umimpressive form. It's like I got to see Bud Light from the point of view of someone who has never really tasted or enjoyed it before - tasteless (ok a slight watery hopiness), ugly (a piss like hue), and cheap.

I accepted an invitation out to dinner with my most recent toxic ex-? ( I will leave the question mark here to honor the fact that most toxic men like to leave the relationship undefined. This makes them much like a virus..able to infect anything that comes in their path- no sexual pun intended but feel free too insert one {that's what she said}).

The night started out innocently enough. "Would you like to have dinner?", he texts.

No response for a few minutes.

"It's just that it's been a hard week and my aunt is very sick. I'd just like someone to talk to" he adds (via text)

OK. I know what I should have done here. I can't carry these burdens for him. I can't help him. This is what his friends are for. But let's face it. I am an addict and my drug has been offered. I fold. "Ok"

He asks "Can you pick me up at the tower (willis/sears) at 8:30 pm."

This is classy. I know.

"Sure", I say.

I show up punctually because that is what I do. We head to the restaurant. We make casual conversation... What are you doing, how is it going, bla bla bla. It is all fine and dandy. I'm looking across the table at ex-? with a strange mixture of emotions.

Emotion #1 Please like me. Please affirm me. Please tell me that I'm beautiful and that you have realized how stupid you were. Put all my insecurities to rest.

Emotion #2 I don't really like you. You are rambling on about some topic involving conspiracy that is relatively uninteresting to me, and you are plunging forth with relatively little input from me. Ugh.

Hmm... what is missing? Looks like the, "I really like you" feeling somehow got left out of the mix. That's concerning... I need you to affirm me, but when I step back and look at the situation, I don't actually like you. This is what makes me think that this is an addiction. Somehow there is no substance to this relationship, but I am just chasing the next high. And I know it. I am not in control of it, and I keep hurting myself to get it. It's amazing how long I can carry on these pseudo-relationships with relatively little effort from the guy. But.. on with my story.

"Why did you need a ride?", I ask curiously.

"Oh, my license is suspended"

"How did that happen?"

"Well, I got my third ticket for not having car insurance"

"Oh."

Later in the evening... as we are splitting the bill...

"Why are there so many copies of my receipt?", he asks. "Wait, do I leave the merchant copy here?
What is the merchant copy?"

Now, WHY, I have to ask myself would I just spend my precious evening hanging out with a 36 year old man who doesn't know the proper place for a merchant copy and who knows even less about paying critical bills on time? Why would I, who has worked SO HARD, to have my shit together all this time even be interested in something like that? Even much more, why would I, a brilliant and beautiful girl with so much to offer remain available for a guy who has barely asked me on a date in 12 months and been even less hesitant to call me anything other than his "friend"?

I guess I humbly submit a potential parallel, "Why is an alcoholic interested in piss colored, piss tasting, cheap beer?"
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