I keep wanting to write on the topic of addiction and how it
relates to obsession. The trouble is that whenever I think deeply
about it I come back to the fundamental question of individual
motivation, which is one that I can't quite figure out an answer
to. Really for years now I've been unsure of why I try to achieve
anything.
Addiction, speaking here of chemical addiction, has always been
something that I've feared. It's not primarily a fear of the
physical consequences, but the idea that a substance could
permanently change my motivations, as they are all that really
define me as a conscious being. This extends to all drugs, in my
teens while most kids were getting curious about drinking and
smoking I started refusing to take Paracetamol from my parents when
I had pain. A bit later I stopped taking any form of caffinated
drinks, and although I did start drinking alcohol it was with a
strict rule that it would only be on one day per year (which for
all social intents and purposes basically means I don't drink).
The rule with alcohol works pretty well. I mean I do get completely
sozzled on that one day, I think last time I was walking bare-foot
on the sharp gravel and howling at the moon at one point, but I
heal and nobody's around to judge out here. For days or weeks,
maybe even months, afterwards I think about drinking again but by
the time a year's passed that addictive desire has passed
completely. I could probably drop it down to one day every six
months, maybe every quarter, but the only way this sort of thing
can work is to pick a rule and stick with it so I'm stuck with the
rule I came up with first. I'm pretty good at being hard at myself
like that - it annoys me actually when most people aren't, but then
they do probably encounter a lot more social influence, which I'm
not entirely immune to either, except just by rarely ever hanging
out with anyone.
What I am left with are what I'll call "soft addictions", which are
basically so socially acceptable that it's a little flippant to
talk about them as addictions at all. The main one is sugar, which
isn't to say that I consume a great amount of the stuff, but that I
keep consuming it regularly, and keep thinking about consuming it.
The main manifestation of this is my little 250g pack of
budget-brand shortbread biscuits, $1.29 at the supermarket (the
fact that I didn't give them up when the price unreasonably lept up
from $0.89 a few years ago is a sure sign of my addiction). If I
don't get two biscuits straight after breakfast then I'm doomed to
be thinking "I could do with a biscuit" for the rest of the damned
day! Worse, when things go wrong, or I'm just feeling depressed by
some reminder of how misplaced some of my other motivations are in
life, I turn to those poorly baked biccies and clean up some
portion of the rest of the weeks' supply. Then if I'm really weak,
I even give in and buy an extra pack if I'm in town again before
the next shopping day (thankfully all the virus restrictions have
made this too much trouble these days).
The biscuits aren't all that nice (though the exact taste and
consistency seems to mysteriously vary to a large degree between
packs - probably due to inadequate mixing of the ingredients),
which does limit their addictive effect compared to name-brand
treats. For the latter I allow myself a strict $2 budget per weekly
supermarket visit (pick-up, these days), which is about half of
what the good stuff sells for so I have to hang out for the
half-price specials. Unfortunately now that I don't go in myself I
can't pick through the expired-goods bin anymore so they're
becoming very rare treats and as such I no longer think of them in
a compulsive way, the same as alcohol, unless I've had some
recently.
These physical intakes mainly defined my idea of additction for
some time, but I've also started paying more attention to
experiences and how they can be equally addictive. People usually
talk about obsession in relation to experiences, and addiction
related to physical intake of chemicals, but I'm sure they are two
means to the same end. Certain experiences induce a chemical state
just as chemical intake would force the issue. The most common
example if the 'adrenalin junkie', where adrenalin is a very potent
example that I usually experience from fire brigade turn-outs, but
it's not something I find addictive myself. Again my examples are
'softer', and I'd point first at my period some years ago of
watching two movies every night. I know this is nothing for many
people, in fact the idea of binge watching TV series suggests a
much greater commitment. But for me I think it was too much, both
in terms of physical inactivity and wasted time. The point is that
I felt a need to chase a certain experience every night, first a
lighter story and then something very dark. I came to need this
experience, and the thought of what movies to pick from my inbox of
old second-hand VHS tapes and DVDs whirred in the back of my head
all through the working day.
But that was, and is, a two-part soft addiction, because from
buying them all second-hand from junk shops I started valuing the
rarer 80s rental tapes, appreciating the cover art and the
evolution of VHS cassette construction, and overall started
thinking of them as a collection. So they became another focus of
my collecting, which is easily another addiction that has already
had me amass numbers of cameras and vintage computers beyond my
real capacity to use or even appreciate them individually. In my
teens I picked up a couple of Doctor Who VHS tapes at an Op-Shop,
back when I was only really looking for movies or shows that I was
already aware of liking (The full original run of Doctor Who was
repeated on Australian TV by the ABC while I was a kid, so I knew I
liked it even though I'd already forgotten most of the specific
stories). Although I only ever managed to find one more Doctor Who
tape 'in the wild', I later started buying bulk lots which (then)
were selling for next to nothing on Ebay. For individual tapes I
set a strict budget of $15 including postage and spent many years
trawling through search results trying to find cheap listings for
tapes to fill the gaps in the collection I'd amassed from the bulk
buys. It also gave my mother an easy answer for what to buy me for
Christmas, so in the end she usually got me the ones that were only
ever up at the mighty $20 heights. I've now got the complete set of
over 100 Doctor Who stories released on VHS (plus I picked up DVDs
of the couple where the films were only more recently rediscovered).
Now, with the Who tapes all bought, and me way too cheap to pay $9
postage on other VHS tapes listed online even though the Op-Shop
where I was getting most of them before burnt down, I've ended up
collecting radiation detectors (Geiger counters etc.). Finding them
in Australia at a reasonable price ($50 max budget for a nice one)
is so hard that the pace of that collection is pretty limited,
though I do still waste a lot of time looking for them.
But the time aspect is interesting because I'm really weighing this
against how I could be creating something in that time. Yet
creating things is also a sort of addiction, what I'd call the
tinkerer's addiction. You come up with an idea for something and
start chasing the unique thrill of realising it. The trill is all
the greater if it's something on the edge of your capabilities,
something more remarkable (to you, at least) than anything you've
done before. As such you run into issues, and invest more and more
time, and with a bit of luck you end up with your little thrill of
success. But does it achieve anything? In my case I often hope I'll
be able to make money from it, but I usually fail with that and
that idea only costs me more time and money. Maybe others
appreciate it, but they've already got plenty to appreciate, and
people out there make their living providing it to them, maybe you
already do so yourself in some small part. So why the preference
for creating something ahead of just passively consuming the
entertainment fed to us from so many sources? Creating something
usually comes at a much greater a cost, but it's just another
little soft addiction the same as me watching movies.
And here I'm creating this very long rambly post, wasting a nice,
well kind-of dreery actually, Saturday morning. But for this I'm
also feeding into another addiction - socialising. As cut-off and
one-directional as it is, I'm feeding into my own unusually weak
addiction to people. It's not all that weak really - I waste up to
an hour each morning going through Usenet and on rare occasions
non-business email discussions, which I do justify as expanding my
knowledge but it's often really just the interaction that I seek.
At the same time I'm usually pretty well satisfied reading posts
for 1/2hr and maybe replying to one with a sentence or two, as my
main social interaction for the day. With much more socialising
than that I find I've had enough of it pretty soon. Interacting
with women that I'm attracted to is definately addictive
specifically though, and maybe I notice that more than most given
that I don't do it much. It lasts pretty strongly for a few weeks,
and skews my judgement a lot even if I'm not "in love" or anything.
Just wanting to be around girls, even if excepting the opportunity
for sex, and in spite of a dislike for the social sort of lifestyle
enabling that. Probably as a consequence of my age, it's much more
strongly addictive than most other things I toy with.
So if you don't create anything, don't talk to anyone, don't go
near people you're attracted to, don't eat things you enjoy, never
consume any substances that affect your thinking, and never buy
anything non-essential, then according to me you're not an addict.
You see the problem that I kept coming to when thinking about this
post. I've basically categorised all the normal motivations of life
as negative addictions. Some I indulge in daily, some I strictly
restrain myself from, and others I just sort-of fade in and out
from by way of circumstance. What I'm really uncertain about is
what motivates me one way or the other, or to put it another way
why do I choose some addictions over others? They can all
individually make me happier for some moment of time, all come with
some risks, and all can go too far and dominate my life. It's not a
conscious balance, it's the same conflict between loving and hating
everything simultaneously that I've talked about before. I choose
to indulge in some addictions and not others, because my addictions
are what I am. To live, regardless of how you do it, is basically
to be a life junkie.
