Slave

As has been mentioned here a few times before, I am a junkie. I have the mentality of an addict, and when I am about to become hooked on something, I frequently need to approach it with an almost 12-step mentality, if I am not to fall pray to it. It makes sense that such an inclination runs in families, seeing how my brother was a slave to alcoholism all of his adult life, almost up to the point when he died just after his 43rd birthday.

Still, I do not get hooked on everything. And not even some of the classics. For example, booze doesn't seem to be a problem for me. But smoking is. Or would be, if I hadn't gone to some pains to stop using it when I was sixteen. I think my saving grace was that I hadn't smoked for more than a couple of years, but it was still an effort. Other smoking or snorting or shooting up has not been a problem, simply because I have been too scared shitless to even try most of it. However, I was addicted to what I gather is the worst of them all, caffeine. That took a long cold turkey back in '92 or '93, and I have stayed away from the stuff ever since. Of my current masters, chocolate probably remains the most powerful, and insidious. I have spells every other month or so, where I just can't stop eating it. I wake up in the morning and have to load up on candy bars. I can therefore not wait to get to the gas station, beacause I know that I cleaned out any scrap of chocolate in the house the night before. Same thing with ice cream. There are these recurring periods when I have to have my daily pint, preferrably of Ben & Jerry's. At least there, I actually do have a warning sign I sometimes pay attention to: The day I have had two pints, by myself, during that one day, is usually the day I manage to start a successful ice cream cold turkey. Which may last a couple of weeks, or even a few months.

Somewhat less corporal, but no less consuming, are addictions such as my movie/DVD spouts, my road biking periods a.k.a. my marathon years a.k.a. the fight for my brown belt (also known as the karate-kid-with-several-broken-bones period), back in the day my computer games insomniatic weeks on ends, latent workaholism, and my ever-present news addiction. That last one actually never seems to really subside, it just varies in intensity from glancing over headlines twice a day to an all-out, full-blown ride through news media on five continents, followed by bouts of depression over the cruel brutality in the world and my inability to do much about it. Those rides can last all through the night, several nights in a row.

Now if I could only get hooked on moderation.