Imagine's Journal

  I’ve often told friends that I can’t get addicted even when I seemingly try to. I mean, as a kid I smoked cigarettes, and couldn’t really get addicted. I was able to quit without incident when smoking became inconvenient (read, I wised up). I lived for almost ten years with an alcoholic partner and never could really get to where having alcohol in the house mattered to me. When I was in High School, my peers were really into any number of addictive things. It’s not so much that I “didn’t inhale”, as that I didn’t care one way or the other. Wait. Not completely true. I never liked that out-of-control feeling comes with the taking of drugs. This is actually a bad thing during episodes when my doctor is trying to get me into the MRI machine. Especially if I’ve NOT taken my valium as she prescribed and as a result CANNOT be made to be slid into the scary, close cave that is the MRI machine. At great expense, I might add, and in the middle of the night (they schedule MRIs 24/7). I’ll simply have to stop dislocating my limbs at this rate. But still. Point is, I don’t get addicted to things. I don’t have that ‘addictive personality’ I guess. Which brings us up to the present.

 I had/have a situation going on in my life which is clearly Not Good for Me. So much so (so embarrassingly so) that I won’t go into the details here. So, what’s the problem, then? Just drop the ‘situation’. I try. I am trying. I have tried. Let’s conjugate the verb to try. It seems that I can manage to avoid this particular thing-that-is-not-good-for-me for about twenty four hours at a time. Then I start seeking it out, even as I repeatedly keep kicking myself knowing that, well, this isn’t good for me. Most recently, I’ve dropped all internet links to this particular not-good-for me thing. All that accomplished is that I must now Google to re-find the path when my self-control slips. What the heck is wrong with me? This Is Not Good For Me. Like smoking or gambling or drugs. Well, perhaps not *that* bad for me, but still. My intellect clearly tells me that this is Something to Be Avoided. So why do I keep seeking it out? Might I be experiencing some form of addiction? I’m starting to think so. The ‘reward’ as the operant conditioning folk might wonder about, is that it feels so darned good. Well, when it doesn’t make me abjectly miserable.  But there's the thing. I feel. I feel very strongly as a result of this stimulus. Not all good, mind you, but loud. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t simply that feeling anything, good or bad, beats the hell out of feeling nothing at all. It’s a drama addiction, I think. Before the reader jumps to any inappropriate conclusions, let me clarify that this particular addiction impacts only on me. This isn’t about anyone else and it’s not about pornography (one of my sister’s chief annoyances). There is no torrid affair with a married man going on or anything like that. This is much more stupid and, on a maturity scale, is approximately middle-school level (for my part). Which doesn't make it suck any less for me.

I’ve often thought that maturity is overrated, but just now I think that I need spring to come, and sooner rather than later.