Toward Peace 'n Quiet: Help! I'm Out of Control!

I’ve already broken my 2016 New Years resolution - twice - and it’s only the 3rd of January.

habituation - the act or process of making habitual or accustomed

addiction - a strong and harmful need to regularly have something

compulsivity - caused by a desire that is too strong to resist : impossible to stop or control

I struggle for the correct word- strong enough to demonstrate my absolute shame at my lack of control and not too strong as I've a reluctance to make light of humans with genuine, uncontrollable addiction problems.

I ask myself questions about my problem:

Is it impulsive? yes somewhat...
uncontrollable? not really yet...
obsessive? not quite, but almost...
chronic? not yet, I think...
habit forming? define “habit"

I have various stacks of books about the house that I fully intend to read - at some point in my remaining years. Yet I just ordered four more yesterday and two more today. I simply couldn’t control the impulse.

Many who find themselves out of control, look for culpability. Who or what can I blame? Was it my mother’s fault? Was it the tennis instructor who years back told me, “Perhaps you should try a sport that doesn’t require hand-eye coordination.”?

I choose to blame the internet. It starts out innocent enough with me reading book reviews by the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, NPR, Bill Gates’ blog, or such. Then as I attempt to use online information to discover more about a particular book or author, I follow one link to another to another until I find myself woefully lost, like Hansel and Gretel when the birds ate their track of crumbs.

My research usually turns up a completely different book or author than the one with which I began my quest. I have lists all over the place of books I hope to beg, buy, borrow or steal one day. I vowed that this year would be different. I vowed that I would finish each and every book in my various mounds before I took another book into my home. But, I tell you I'm hopeless!

I remember a co-worker, John, when I worked at the university, a cigarette smoker, who reasoned that his smoking was okay since it was his only vice. “I don’t drink. I don’t chase women. I’m hardworking and a darn good parent. I deserve something."

And that’s usually how it goes with such vices. We excuse them away.

My shame will resurface in the next week or so, when the postal service delivers the packages of books to my home and Faithful Husband - who is fully aware of my array of stacks as he occasionally trips over them - will hand the books over to me, uncertain if he should feel compassion for my weakness as he witnesses my attempt to fill some void that is within me. He must notice the urgency with which I unwrap the books and almost breathe them in. But, he will also know, as do I, that I have once again fallen victim to my indulgences.

I once did the seemingly impossible, impossible for me anyway. I quit all caffeine for seven years - SEVEN YEARS. Let me explain that at the time I went caffeine-free I was a person for whom it was necessary to have a cup of coffee in the morning just to go out and have a cup of coffee. Anyway it seems I had this fibrous tissue in my body and my doctor said all I had to do was give up all caffeine and "like magic" it would go away.

I decided at the time to just go cold-turkey and as I sat at my desk on day-one, a Catholic priest from the university stopped in my office sometime mid-morning. I could see the alarm on his face as he asked if I was okay. “I’m fine. I decided to give up caffeine and this is my first day without.” “Yes, um, uh-huh, but um, perhaps you should try to gradually wean yourself. You don’t look well at all."

I’ll give it a few months I thought. I’d always believed in the power of fasting or the Lenten ritual of “giving something up” for 30-40 days. I’d always found the experience helpful in sort of resetting things internally, giving me control that’d I’d seemed to have lost. Who can’t quit something for 30 measly days? Right? Anyway, with the caffeine I reasoned, and I thought it was valid at the time, that I never drank coffee as a child and yet my body then had the ability to function in a perfectly satisfying way without it. When I told this to the priest, he said, “Hmm, you know, you may have something there!"

The months stretched on and I found a hidden benefit as I’d seemed to completely lose my occasional craving for chocolate. It must have been the caffeine in the chocolate I was longing for and not the candy. I kept at it, proud of myself, actually. A year later a trip to the doctor showed that the fibrous tissue was still there. “Well, sometimes it takes a bit longer to see the results. You keep it up!” And the year stretched into more years, but there was never an improvement to the dense tissue. At the seven year point I asked the doctor just how much longer it would take. “Well, Ranell, some people have an acute condition that is not at all related to caffeine intake. I’m afraid you fall into that category. Sorry!"

“What!? That’s it?! Are you kidding me? I suffered for seven years for nothing?"

As I type this I am on my third cup of coffee. I mean after all it’s Sunday. And I don’t have many other vices, outside of book buying. I’m a devoted wife, I don’t smoke cigarettes, I don’t drink to excess, well not too often anyway, I don’t chase men… I mean I deserve something don’t I?