I must be honest off the bat here and say I did NOT want to write this. I swore when I started this blog, however, that I would be honest, even if it was something I didn’t really want to say. In my heart I know that the honesty will one day help somebody, and for that, it’s worth it.
I will also admit that you might get to the end of this and feel as though I led you down an anticlimactic path with that first paragraph, but all I can promise is that if you don’t fully “get” the struggle I’m addressing here, I envy the hell out of you.
Most people have probably heard of an addictive personality. I’m really hoping that over the course of writing about this topic that I can come up with a better way of explaining what that is and what it looks like. Regardless of what it is called, it is a VERY real thing. I have enough of that particular personality to share with several people, in fact.
But is personality the right word? I’ve struggled with that. Merriam Webster defines this particular use of the word “personality” as “the complex of characteristics that distinguishes an individual, nation, or group.” Okay, I’m good with that. So what is a characteristic? Merriam Webster again says, “A distinguishing trait, quality, or property.” Got it. So basically, all the stuff that makes me the person I am are characteristics and all those characteristics make up my personality. Works for me. Doesn’t really help a damn bit since I knew all of that, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
But there is something so definitive and restrictive and finite about saying I have an addictive “personality.” Even when I was an active alcoholic, I don’t think addiction completely defined me. That wasn’t my entire personality. If I’m to diagnose the other characteristics of my personality, I would say I’m nice (though I have asshole tendencies,) I have a good sense of humor, I am irresponsible, I’m a good cook, I suck at being thoughtful, I’m open-minded, I’m passionately against stereotypes and discrimination and blind hatred, I’m immensely forgetful, I’m the kind of dad my two year old is excited as hell to see at the end of the day because he knows I’ll play rough with him and take him outside and sometimes even enjoy it myself.
So addiction is not my entire personality. Does it (or did it) inform or affect other parts of my personality in such a way that it can be blamed for molding parts of that personality? Absolutely, it sure can. I don’t think I would be “naturally” reclusive, insecure, forgetful, or selfishly thoughtless had it not been for addiction. But addiction isn’t my entire personality. Unless I just contradicted myself.
When you get online and start searching for “personality types,” you get about what you expect to find with anything that was once authoritative and concrete and spelled out in such a way that even idiots like me could understand: somebody went and disproved it eight different ways. And in the process, somebody went and proved the earlier research closer to the truth, but then somebody else proved that there is a new, magnificent study out that will finally help us truly understand our personality type. And then the next click down, somebody has already proven the shiny new one to be a sham, and I soon realize I am in a f**king matrix and nobody actually knows what they hell they’re talking about.
What started out as these “brilliant” scientists clumping us all into either Type A or Type B personalities soon became the Myers-Briggs test that gave us sixteen different personality types, and now the experts say we are far too complex for a psychometric test to accurately reveal anything close to exact about our myriad personalities. For instance, in the Myers-Briggs test, you can only be an introvert or an extrovert. And that’s simply not true. I can be both in the same damn hour!!
So looking at personality types does little to change that troublesome “addictive personality” label, but you’ll just have to trust me that it’s a thing. Case in point: me.
For twenty years, from the age of 19 to 39, I was both an alcoholic and a nicotine addict. I mean, I will always be an addict, but those were my active years with those two particular vices. After I got remarried at the age of thirty-seven and began feeling the heat to end those addictions, I tinkered with fantasy sports to give myself whatever it is we addicts need when we might be losing one or both of the addictions we’ve depended on for so long.
This was my first replacement addiction. And several thousand dollars later, I never actually got rid of it completely. I still tinker with it. It’s more of an “escape” hobby at this point – it’s where I spend a few entertainment dollars here and there – but I’m not so foolish that I would call it a “safe” hobby for an addict.
Now this writing business? Now THAT is a safe hobby. If only I could win money doing it.
But I do still play the really cheap fantasy games where you basically have a fifty-fifty shot at winning seventy-five cents and I can make twenty-five dollars last two months. So it’s not an expensive hobby, but I also know it would not take much to see it return to dangerous levels again. I truly don’t know how that could happen since I barely even touch cash anymore (thanks for paying the bills, dear,) but it is something I know I should end completely. It’s just that I don’t want to. I just enjoy it so much, I’m terrified to let it go completely. Sounds a lot like alcohol and tobacco, doesn’t it? Whatever this personality is called is, at the very least, fueled by addiction.
If you’re counting, that makes three addictions. So what’s number four? Food. Hands down, no question about it, I have an addiction to food, namely sugar. I mean, I’m not getting hooked on cucumbers and quinoa anytime soon, so sugar is the one that makes sense, right? And by the way, I didn’t really even enjoy sugar except in sweet tea prior to sobriety. Things can change quickly for an addict.
Most people already know that sugar is addicting. I’m probably not telling you much you don’t already know with that revelation. But I found an interesting case study online and it belonged here just for further proof. This right here is all you need to know about the addictive qualities of sugar. This guy names James DiNicolantonio, a cardiovascular research scientist at St. Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., said that when lab rats get hooked on cocaine and are then introduced to sugar, they almost always switch solely to the sugar from that point forward. That simultaneously both blew my mind and didn’t shock me at all. Either way, that’s some powerful white powder!!
And now a quick story from this past summer. I’m a high school math teacher, so I get my summers off. It’s most definitely one of the perks of the job even though we basically get paid with food stamps and shitty benefits. My wife and I had attempted this diet called the Whole 30 about five or six times prior to this past summer. During one of those attempts, my wife actually completed it. The best I ever did was about ten days.
Well, this summer, I did it. I went thirty whole days following the most wretched diet I had ever tried in my life. Essentially, it is like a full body cleanse. For thirty damn days. You can eat nothing but lean meat, fruits, and vegetables (even potatoes if you must.) No processed food, no dairy, no wheat or other grains, no legumes, no artificial ingredients, nothing but whole, natural foods. Sounds almost reprehensible, right?
When I started the diet on June 28, I weighed 206.2 pounds. Based on my height, that was about twenty-six pounds overweight. On July 27, day 30, I was 185.6. That’s 20.6 pounds lost. In thirty days. That’s just amazing. And I FELT amazing. I went to Salt Lake City with my wife on July 27, and I had all day on the 28th by myself because she was in a conference, and I did ALL of Salt Lake in a day. Saw everything humanly possible. I walked over thirteen miles. And I wasn’t even that tired. I was in the best shape I had been in in probably ten plus years. All because of my diet.
So would you like to guess what I weigh ninety days later? 212. And why, pray tell, do I now weigh MORE than I did when I started the Whole 30 diet four months ago? That’s a pretty gigantic weight gain. And why is this the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life? And why the f**k can’t I just stop eating massive amounts of junk food and living off of sweet tea?
Addiction. I am the proud owner of four unhealthy addictions.
But that’s not the whole story. It can’t be. It’s virtually impossible to get rid of sugar from a diet entirely, so it can’t be the entire story. In fact, as I sat down to write this – and that weight I disclosed two paragraphs ago is the reason I’m writing this right now – I’m still searching for the whole story. Or maybe it’s more accurately termed “the rest of the story.” Or even better, this is where the story starts coming to an end. It has to. I’m pretty sure I understand part of the reason I have reached the heaviest weight of my life. If you’re an addict, it’ll make a lot of sense. If you’re not, it probably won’t.
When I reign in the eating, however I do it and whenever I do it, I will have no other addictions left. None. They will all be gone. What in the hell do I do then?
A month or so ago I spoke up at an AA meeting and talked about my struggles with sugar, sweet tea, M&M’s, Reese’s, oh my god I want them all now. Sorry. At the same time I spoke about this, I said something about the fact that I had NOT completed those sacred twelve steps. In fact, I’ve basically only done the first step. I have admitted I am powerless over alcohol and my life with it is unmanageable. What I have not done is gotten past the troublesome God stuff in steps two and three. I talk a lot more about that here and here if you’d like to read it.
Armed with what I had just disclosed, a veteran AA old dude spoke up and suggested I was struggling with food because I had not fully taken to the AA way and completed my “treatment.” Oddly enough, this did NOT rub me the wrong way. I fully understood that he may be right. But what if I live forty more years and I never get fully comfortable “handing my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him?” What then? How can I ever be “treated” for my alcoholism and, in turn, use that treatment to assist me with these replacement addictions?
The veteran AA old dudes say that a belief in a higher power does not have to be everybody’s common Christian God. It can be a Group Of Drunks (G.O.D) or Good Orderly Direction (G.O.D.) That’s cute and all, and it actually helps in the beginning, but I am damn sure not handing my will and my life over to a group of drunks, no matter how much I admire and respect them. And I have no idea HOW to hand anything over to good orderly direction. And yes, I will be the first to admit that I sound haughty and pretentious with this opinion, but I’m not only being honest with everything I say on this blog, I’m mostly being honest with myself. I know I have LOTS of growing left to do. There’s no sense lying about it.
And if I fake it through steps two and three just to say I’ve done them, I am not displaying the right kind of authenticity with myself that is required to gain confidence in my ability to say “no” when things get rough. I’m not faking ANYTHING. As soon as I fake something, I am giving myself the approval to cut corners, and we all know what happens when recovering addicts start bending their own rules a little.
Before you go off thinking I am completely godless and I spend my spare time sharpening my fiery red trident as I prepare for my spot in the devil’s army, I actually DO believe in the Christian god. I believe that absolutely nothing on this Earth, or even in the far reaches of the cosmos, makes a damn bit of sense unless somebody is responsible. Somebody had to create it all, though I’m still stuck on who or what created God. Regardless, he created me and he created this brain, and this brain has a certain f**kedupedness that is actually pretty charming if you give it a chance.
That f**kedupedness, however, leads to an inability to accept that he gave me all of this intelligence, willpower, tenaciousness, self-will, stubbornness, and the sprouting of a newfound inner strength simply to just give it all back to Him or any other G.O.D. and say, “You’re in control of my life now, God.” How exactly does a man like me do that? I don’t pretend to understand how ANYBODY does that.
I’m the type of man that could one day get a blatant and obvious sign from God and say, “But what if he’s just screwing with me to see if I’ll fall for it? I now have to do the opposite.” That’s literally the way my mind thinks. People like me CANNOT hand our will and our lives over to somebody with whom we cannot communicate. Go ahead and call me a fool. You won’t be the first. I know I’m a fool. But I’m just being honest with myself. And maybe that honesty is the reason I’m actually NOT a fool anymore. You don’t know that I’m wrong.
So how does a guy like me, with all these damn addictions and all this mental fuckedupedness find treatment for the final serious addiction and somehow find contentment with a life that does not include a single one? It’s pretty clear at this point that the traditional twelve steps aren’t going to be the complete answer. Not for me. Besides, the more important steps towards the end, like making amends to those people we hurt during our drinking days, I’ve done them in my own way. Well, mostly, but the ones I haven’t done aren’t stressing me out so badly that I eat uncontrollably.
As I’ve written this, a couple of different ideas have come to mind about why I’m now struggling so badly with food. The first is the very first theme that became the catalyst for this blog: fear. The second is basic contentment. I have never, as far back as the memories go, known a time when I was totally content with my place in life.
Let’s start with fear. This is the easy one. I am terrified at what happens when ALL of my “escapes,” my “releases,” my “vices” are gone. What happens then? Who do I become? What quells the anxiety that will inevitably build as I go through my days knowing I have NOTHING to satisfy the emotional and psychological relief that I received through alcohol, tobacco, fantasy sports, and now sugar? Where does that relief come from?
One answer I know to be true now is writing. This absolutely helps. But what happens in three months when there is a newborn at home and we have two kids under three years old plus a thirteen year old? (And I’m a forty-one year old man, mind you.) How can I guarantee I’ll get my writing time when I’m trying to be super dad while my wife is so selflessly sacrificing so much to try to breast feed while still doing her damnedest to appease a toddler who doesn’t understand why mommy is NOT his and his alone anymore?
How do I find writing time when I’m still the main cook in the house, I still do most of the yard work, I still work full time, and I still feel a fierce obligation to give my family as much of my time as possible because of all the time I stole from them during my drinking days? What’s my release then, huh? And what if writing alone isn’t the answer? I don’t know how to live without addiction. I’m absolutely clueless. I’m terrified.
Since I started writing a few months ago, I can absolutely feel a relief in me when I sit down and have time to write. When I don’t, I get nervous and anxious and my mind is going forty thousand miles an hour trying to figure out how I’m going to get my time. I would not wish this shit on anybody. It can be pretty torturous to a person’s brain. But it most certainly boils down to FEAR. I’m terrified of this baby coming. I love my kids more than life, but the baby stage can be pretty awful. It scares me.
I’m also terrified of what happens when I make a change that is going to severely change my sugar intake probably for the rest of my life. I know the next diet change will need to be a lifestyle change. Those are not easy for an addict. I’m terrified. There’s no more profound way to put it. For twenty years, my addictions were rigid and unchanging. It was alcohol and tobacco. Day in and day out, it was the same thing. And it took me a decade after I first admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic to finally admit it out loud. This sugar thing is fairly new in comparison.
And if you think I’m being overly dramatic about the significance of this final addiction, I would like for you to go spend twenty years addicted to multiple mind-altering substances and see how you handle it. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
The second reason I think I am struggling so much with food is the basic premise of contentment. How in the hell do I have the strength to continue to better myself when I can’t catch of glimpse of contentment in my life to know what I’m even searching for? If I don’t know what contentment looks like, how in the hell am I so sure I’ll ever find it? And if I can’t, why in the hell would I want to quit something that gives me pleasure?
The coming end to an addiction is always worse than when you think you have time to continue it. I know I have to be at the end of one more addiction, and I am REALLY struggling. It’s almost impossible to go completely off of sugar, but my body is in definite need of a major cutback. And when that happens, there is no coming back to what I’m doing now. There just can’t be. And that is why I weigh more right now than I ever have. I know I’m at the end, and I’m absolutely eating something with sugar in it every single chance I get because I know it will soon end. It’s exactly like the end of alcohol and tobacco all over again.
Here’s a typical day right now. I drink almond milk on the way to work, only lately I’ve been putting Reese’s creamer in it. So there’s five grams of sugar I don’t need. I drink about twenty-five ounces of sweet tea while I’m at work. I easily drink another fifty the rest of the day. That’s roughly half a gallon, which means that’s a full cup of sugar.
During my planning period at work, I nibble on either M&M’s or Reese’s cups or Vanilla Cupcake Goldfish or Kit Kats or something else bite sized and either sugary or chocolatey. At night, I typically cook something pretty healthy, almost always with two veggies and some kind of lean meat. So I do great for my meals. But then I sit down at night to write, and I eat an entire bag of Chester’s Puffcorn while drinking sweet tea and then finish off the night with more M&M’s.
My best guess is that I consume more than two cups of sugar per day. The average person consumes seventy-seven grams of sugar per day. Care to know how many grams are in two cups of sugar? It almost sickened me when I found out.
One cup of sugar contains 200 grams of sugar. The average person consumes 77 grams per day. I top that with just the sweet tea. I have made a fairly conservative guess that I consume two cups of sugar per day. That’s 400 grams of sugar. Oh, and the 77? That’s STILL too high. In other words, I’m well on my way to diabetes, obesity, cancer, fatty liver disease, and a worsened heart condition. And I already have one of those. I have a genetic one called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. So I’m just yearning to make it worse, I guess.
And I’m done. I just can’t write another word about it. That’s a depressing way to end this damn article. Do you know why it’s called an addictive personality? I got it now. Because right now, I don’t give a damn what characteristics of my personality are dulled or depressed by the one personality trait that essentially controls the rest: addiction. THAT is why it is called an addictive personality. If the characteristics of my personality were a nation of people, addiction would be Hitler.
And STILL I do NOT want this to end. But I know I have to. I’m ready to live a life not controlled by addiction. And yet I’m not. I swear I would not wish this on anybody. Not a damn soul.
I’m just going to go for a walk. With a bag of f**king kale.
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