Addicted – Who me?!

“Cocaine isn’t habit forming. I should know – I’ve been using it for years” - Tallulah Bankhead

 

Basically there are 2 kinds of people. One who are prone to some substance or activity, and others who are more prone. Those who are prone tend to develop a love, passion or hobby so-to-say; and those are more prone tend to develop a strong dependence, over-indulgence or habit. That’s it! That’s what differentiates moderation from extreme. Beauty still remains beautiful. But it becomes intoxication for some. And these are indeed the people who are weak on self-control.

Let’s just say I belong to the second category when it comes to ‘some’ kind of stuff. It took me a while to realize when I had crossed the thin line of ‘feeling good about it’ to ‘feeling void in its absence’.

I am sure each one of us have had or still continue to have one or the other type of addictions, still giving us those pleasurable moments, which make us feel guilty just after we are finished indulging ourselves, and try to program our minds into thinking and believing that this was 'that' last time, until we are there again.

Not all addictions make us feel guilty, but many do, because most of the pleasures, as they say, are sinful...!

My day boots with a cup of bed-tea. If for some reason, a few minutes pass by and I still haven’t got my cup of heaven, my ever-anxious skull would start knocking - ‘I need to get up please!’ It’s like there are times when I have woken up, but my mind has not. As if my mind and the rest of me are two different entities each having an existence of its own. And when we go out-of-sync, conflict punches in. That’s when a need arises to condition the mind into desiring the righteous or at least not desiring the non-righteous. 

Take today’s instance, Kunal isn’t here and there isn’t much office work either, so Great! Facebook! I got a little over-indulged actually. And after a while, it started getting sticky and on to my nerves, my nerves, well, are already in torture these days, thanks to the Men in my life! Oops I mean Dentists! So I decided to gift myself some peace by shunning all this noise around me. I deactivated my account, guess what, just to re-activate and post this in my status update the next day! Yes facebook is a cyber drug, it’s an addiction too. I know many of you out there (especially self-obsessed, attention seekers) who too have been infused with this disorder will agree.

Till some time back, I was too obsessed to watch horror and psyche movies. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t feel scared, in fact every time I would feel as if there’s someone under my bed waiting for Kunal to leave the room, and then get on a one-on-one with me. This trend continued but I still dint give up on my mania because the thrill, I analyzed, far outweighed my terror. Until I started seeing some real (and not reel) not-to-be-seen stuff at night with my eyes open. Well after being dragged rather damaged down to this level, where my thrill turned into suffocation, I finally got away with my obsession.  

It doesn’t end here for life is full of discoveries.Tongue-biting – yet another ‘insane’ indulgence of mine. Though it got discovered long back when I thought I was a kid. Unfortunately my growing up hasn’t helped me either. Sigh. It’s like I am constantly chipping off my tongue when I am into deep thinking. And after doing it constantly for minutes, hours at times, when I finally become aware of it, I stop it, feel bad about doing it, feel little pain on my tongue too, until in next 30-60 seconds, I am doing that again. Now this is as if the 'culprit' tooth and the 'victim' tongue have a chemistry, a life of their own. And I am no where a part of it. I would love to know if anyone of you or anyone you know of is into this ‘insane’ habit of tongue-biting. That would just make me feel a little saner about myself.

Thankfully there are some which haven’t been able to touch me till now, like addiction to shopping even though I am a feminist. Then addiction to gambling, alcohol, smoking, medicines, flirting etc. But knowing my highs on proneness, I must say, I explicitly make an effort to avoid some of the above stuff though I have this extreme urge in extreme cases to just go for it. When my body says 'yes', but my heart says 'no'. A few things, I know, am just not made for. And as New Year is round the corner, I don’t know how much of the ‘above’ would find a place on my resolutions list, if at all I come up with one, as I am not so much a believer of ‘New Year is the time to just get over from your hell’ and how much of the ‘above’ would actually succeed in being no more a part of me - once I start exhibiting some self-control and synchronization of my mind and body.

That said, addictions, if channeled in the right direction and driven with right intensity, can prove to be good too. My fb addiction triggered me into this thought of ‘addictions and me’; I could collect my thoughts and vent them out or rather confess them this way. Feels lighter. I must say. And it’s said it’s easier to work on some things once declared/confessed publicly.

After all, who is without a flaw! Even saints and so-called gurus are addictive. Addictive to the non-materialistic pleasures of meditation, to the pleasures they derive out of dedicating themselves to the cause of humanity. And not to forget - My marriage is a result of my addiction to Love, which in turn is a result of my addiction to Kunal. And till date, I feel, Love is like cocaine! So all addictions aren’t that bad!! ;-)

P.S.- Well, the planet is full of crazy nuts and their weird kick-bags–

Hating nerds, Angry Birds

Watching porn, Having pop-corn

Freaking on Gadgets, Crying on budgets

Stock Market Fluctuations, Doctors and their never ending prescriptions… list goes on and on and on…