Mice, Thoreau and addiction

Addiction is such a strange, self-divisive phenomenon, and it brings about so many strange, contradictory and conflicting desires and impulses and actions. At first I wrote "emotions," but then crossed it out, because if there is absolutely, positively, certainly one thing that addiction/addictive behavior does NOT stir up or bring about, it's EMOTION. Addiction, from my experience, seems to be about the denial of or replacement of emotion. I would guess that what "drives" it is when someone (like me) discovers that a substance (or, in my case, an activity) gives him a rush or a kick that is more reliable than joy. The problem with seeking joy or love or other "positive" emotions is that there is the risk that you will find, instead, sadness or disappointment. Addiction and the "kick" and "rush" it provides is reliable, relatively speaking. It eliminates the risk of disappointment.

But here is another thing that I've learned from addiction. There is something worse than feeling "negative" emotions, and that is feeling NOTHING. Feeling numb.

Addiction is a complicated cause-and-effect chain with so many factors feeding it.

Here's the thing to me: the addictive activity I've found is one that I "like" doing and WANT to do because of that rush, that kick. As a friend put it when I told her about it, it fills a lot of different emotional and psychological needs in addition to the "chemical" ones. But at the same time, even while I "like" it and WANT to do it, I also know it's something that I shouldn't indulge in, for all different sorts of reasons. So even while I'm doing it, and "enjoying" it, and feeling lost in it, there's also a part of me that is thinking I shouldn't be doing it... and then, as I'm "cleaning up afterwards" (the equivalent of an alcoholic waking up hungover from a bender and dumping all of the bottles down the kitchen sink), there's a feeling of dread, almost.... like I better not clear ALL of my tracks. Like I'm afraid to get rid of them. "What if I need them someday?" Meaning, of course, "what will I do if/when a few months/weeks/days/hours down the road, I want to do this again?" Actually, it's not a question of "what if"; it's a question of "when I do."

And that's where the other divisiveness kicks in: the instinct of self-protection and looking out for my own best interests, even (or, perhaps more accurately, ESPECIALLY) when those interests conflict with some desire that feels like a physical NEED.

And that is the factor in this that gives me hope. If addiction is a "brain disease" wherein the "healthy, normal brain" has basically been rewired and more or less trained/conditioned/programmed to seek addictive behavior in order to trigger chemical responses, then it seems to me that "rewiring" and re-training, reconditioning, reprogramming can also take place.

So what I need to do is follow that "self-protection" urge. For instance, a couple nights ago, when faced with the desire to "engage my addiction," I said to myself "O.K.... I need to go outside and build a fire or do something different to get away from this."

I have seen the power of my self-discipline at work in other areas of my life (in college with weight training, after my divorce with swimming, with my writing and with schoolwork) and while the little (VERY little) I've read about addiction tries to explain and even give solace by saying that addiction is not a matter of "weakness" or "lack of willpower" or anything like that, a part of me is loathe to fully accept the whole "it's just a brain disease and you're powerless over it" line of thinking. Because if there is one belief I have come to adopt over the last 25 years, it's that a person is NEVER powerless. I refuse to believe that my addiction is something I can only treat through medications. I have a feeling that claiming my power in this and finding "what works instead" is a key. So maybe I have not yet found the right way, or gone far enough in seeking an alternative. But when I was faced with the desire to engage my addiction a couple nights ago, and I thought "You know, I need to get out of this room and do something different"... even though I came back in and "fell off the wagon," still... I did do the right thing in walking away. And if I could walk away, then I know I can also do other things... and those other things may take some discipline and self-awareness. But I'm thinking that maybe this is the way to go about the "rewiring." Finding preventive measures to make it harder for me to engage my addiction is a biggie; that, in combination with finding new behaviors, will, over time, I'm convinced, lead to my "brain disease" subsiding through "rewiring" as the new behaviors reinforce DIFFERENT chemical responses than the addiction; thus, the "addictive pathways" weaken.

In any case, it's something that I take responsibility for, even though, at its worst and "in the middle of it," it really feels like something that is totally out of my control. But as I told a friend of mine recently, something about seeing that it IS "out of my control" has made me feel like I have more of a handle on it.

Funny: there was a great passage in the volume of Thoreau's journal that I signed out of the library: his entry of November 5, 1855. True to Henry Form, it starts "I hate the present means of living and getting a living," and, yeah, I do, too... and unlike Thoreau, I haven't really found MY solution yet... and, like Thoreau, I find that "the life which society proposes to me to live is so artificial and complex... that no man surely can ever be inspired to live it"... all that... etc etc etc. I almost copied it into my notebook or posted it on my facebook page or blog...

But the conclusion of the entry seems somehow appropos to all of this bullshit I'm going through right now:

"Thus men invite the devil in at every angle, and then prate about the Garden of Eden and the fall of man."

Which is to say...

...this whole thing with addiction is not something I really WANTED. I kind of backed into it not knowing any better, and now I'm trying to get OUT of it without getting tangled in the weeds or stuck in the briars. If I'd known, 20-some years ago, that what felt like "escapist" behavior would lead to THIS, I would have never taken that first step.

But I feel like there is a danger in calling addiction a "brain disease" or a "condition," and that danger, again, is allowing IT to have the ultimate power. I'm seeing addiction for what it is, and it's BIG and difficult. But the last thing I want to do is make excuses for it: treat it as something to which I could resign myself. I can see clearly how I very often "invite the devil in" and then get lost in my addiction. If I am in the least bit self-aware, then I must know my weaknesses so that addiction "doesn't have a chance."

It's like getting rid of mice. You gotta do three things: clean up the house so there's nothing to attract them, kill off the ones who are still hanging around, and then seal off the entry points so that the little fuckers have no way of getting back in. One of those things alone won't solve the problem. If you make a mess, clean it up. If you find a mouse, kill it. If you find you missed an entry point, seal it. Simple.

And when all that fails, I suppose, employ what, to me, is the solution of last resort: call in the exterminator with the heavy chemicals.

Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.