Thursday, July 27, 2017
My Drug of Choice
I know I have an addictive nature so I tend to stay away from anything that may get me hooked. This habit started when I was younger after watching my family go down a slippery slope with sex, drugs, alcohol etc. Unfortunately, I found my own slope one day and went skiing. Have you ever heard of the saying, "Too much of a good thing..." Well yeah, that was me and my love of reading. Life sucks sometimes and I found myself addicted to being lost in other people's worlds. It would only take me a day or so to devour a 400 page book. So I was constantly laying around the house, ignoring responsibilities, blowing off work just to find out what happens next in the series. I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping, and I definitely wasn't bathing because it took up too much time.
Vividly, I remember that my daughter was in preschool at the time and she would always call my name for something. My response would be give me a second. Let me finish this chapter. It wasn't until I had some grand epiphany one day that I have idolized these books. I put them before everything that was meant to be a priority in my life. That epiphany came about 18 months ago. I put myself on what I coined as a "reading punishment". There was no books allowed for a period of 12 months unless for school or work. No leisure reading at all. It SUCKED! But I made it through. Now, I'm back on my kindle, but in moderation. I set a day aside where I have nothing to do and no kids around to take care of and I just get lost in somebody else's world for the day. I guess the first step to recovery is recognizing. ;)
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I completely agree with you Chavonne. I used to just read like this, but you definitely have to keep a balance, because too much of anything isn't good.
ReplyDeleteI feel like there was a period in time when what you consider to be an addiction to reading, was reading a normal amount. Reading seems to be a lost art in today's technology ridden world. All that being said you used reading to escape from the world around you, which is probably one of the healthiest things you could use to escape something. But like anything else, if it takes you away from real life and you avoid responsibilities to do it then it is a problem. Addiction is a rough road and being able to face reality without being able to escape it is even more rough when you've been able to escape for a long period of time.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, the key to change a behavior is awareness. Individuals that struggle with addiction of any kind, can get stuck in the pre contemplation stage which includes being in denial of the issue. It's encouraging to hear that you made a decision to change the behavior and followed through with action and are now in the maintenance stage.
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