The Addict
[THIS CONTENT IS OLD DATA AND IS NOT AUTHORIZED BY THE HIGH COUNCIL. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.]
Addiction has been a topic of interest to me lately; it's been something that has made me take a hard look at myself and my destructive habits. I've always been very aware of the habits that I have and I know myself well enough to see when something has become too much, but the discipline of removing the source is the hardest part for me. For myself, I've always been addicted to the social medias we all love and use, but am primarily entangled with reddit. Something about the forum-based posting and discussion was something that always made me want to sink hours into scrolling the app, and I've deleted it several times to try and escape its influence on my brain.
Inherently, there's nothing wrong with social media if you're engaging and using it to tune out for a few minutes in the day. But for me, this isn't something I can casually do if I have it available to me on my phone. No matter how badly I wish to do something, I will push it off and use my fear of failure to continue doom-scrolling. It sounds like such a first-world problem, but this has bled into the progression of my life beyond the creative; doctors appointments, interpersonal relationships, major steps in developing myself.
The other offender of this, sadly, is video games. I've always loved playing video games; specifically, I've always been a big Nintendo guy. But other games have taken literal days, if not months of my life due to how entranced I feel playing them. Even if I convince myself that a specific game is more intellectually stimulating than others, I know that the reality is that I'm playing it to pass the time because it's easier than to invest work into something more substantial. This isn't to say that I don't love digging into some games' stories and gameplay, because I do think that they're wonderful mediums of entertainment. I just lack the discipline to know when to stop, and because of that, there are some games I know I can't play for my own good.
It feels strange to rant about how I feel like The Addict because I can't control my impulses with technology, but my analysis of others in my life that deal with the disease have made me very aware of the dangers in addiction. Many members of my family are avid smokers, some for the majority of their lives. Others, such as my father, have had issues with substances when they were younger that fundamentally changed who they were. Hearing the accounts of the things that he did or said from both my mother and himself have made me very wary to ever consider trying certain substances. But on the other side of the coin, my father was also able to commit himself to never drinking liquor since he was in his twenties; the duality of these two very different actions from the same person lead me to believe that the same restraint can be harnessed in my personal life, but am lacking the understanding of how to do so.
I recently ran into an old friend of mine that really put this all into perspective for me: The Addict himself. I'd met this friend a few years ago when I moved out of my mother's house, and we began to bond very quickly as coworkers. Our personal interests, hobbies, perspectives on life were so similar that it felt like we were meant to meet one another, almost like a lost set of brothers. At first, I didn't think much of the drinking or consumption that I'd be around with my friend. It just seemed like we were having a good time with friends and that it wasn't a regular occurrence. This, sadly, was not the case; the more time I'd spend with him and a few of his other friends, the more I realized that this wasn't the kind of lifestyle I wanted to surround myself with. I of course found this very sad, I loved being around this guy. We had similar senses of humor that made it really fun to bounce jokes off one another, we both wanted the best for each other and to see each other be happy. On paper, these were the foundations of a very solid friendship. But I couldn't watch my friend keep hurting himself with these habits, no matter how hard he tried to help himself or others in his life did.
Seeing him again made me happy very briefly, but smelling the liquor on him immediately washed the joy away from me. This encounter made me step back and give the same critique I'd given him to myself. Was I still stuck in old loops and habits myself? Was I really doing any better with things I know I struggled with? That answer was in some ways yes, but in many others no. I view our encounter as a sign that I needed to look inward and assess my own homeostasis and wishes on life before casting the judgment on someone else; a moment of humbling.
I know that we're all human and not machines: we can't always be perfect no matter how hard we try. Just because we've removed one habit doesn't mean another will come to fill it's place. I tend to be very hard on myself and lack forgiveness for the mistakes that I make, and I know that it plays a key role in this continuous loop of self-destruction. The path to happiness is one with self-love and discipline, and I hope to use the insight others have given me to get me there.
-g