Blog interrupted (day 231)

We interrupt this blog for a riveting novel...the girl with the dragon tattoo.  We will be back after this low tech interruption.

A song for this post.

Wanting more (day 167)

I attended a talk by Bruce Alexander today.  He's a professor of psychology at SFU, and recently wrote a book called The Globalisation of Addiction.   He's been studying addiction for over 30 years and brought up some interesting points about the mechanisms of addiction, or insatiability as he prefers to call it.  First he makes a distinction between insatiability and exuberance.  Both have excess as a characteristic but differ in the feeling experienced by the person exhibiting the behaviour and the person witnessing the behaviour.   As he puts it "Exuberance gives you a contact high.  Insatiability gives you a contact low".  I suppose the line is fine and that one can certainly morph into the other.  I remember a line in the animation Ryan where one of the characters talks about the first flush of addiction being highly creative, productive, and attractive.  Often the language around the behaviour can identify the deeper motivation of the action.  He gave an example of Lady Gaga exhibiting insatiability behaviours not only because of what she does (which could just be exuberance) but also how she talks about it ("if I lost [this fame], I would die").  I think we've all been around a person who drinks and crosses the line from exuberance to insatiability.  There a moment where discomfort enters the room.  We're all slightly embarrassed and fascinated at the same time.

The even more interesting part of his talk was when he started talking about the origin of insatiability.  Gabor Mate who also works in the Downtown Eastside claims that addicts are there because they were abused as children, didn't get what they needed and got lots they didn't need.  Bruce Alexander contests this by saying, there are many children who have had completely normal childhoods but end up in the DTES, and many who have had horrendous childhoods but are not addicts.  He also contests Gabor's claim that the brain cannot really recover from a faulty wiring that happened because of the abuse, saying that half of the addicts in the DTES are able to kick their habit.  So he fundamentally rewrites the equation of addiction by saying that the dysfunctional behaviour is present before the addiction is.  He further claims that the dysfunctional behaviour is caused by a massive dislocation, a fragmentation of society.  The insatiability comes from a need for community that has been lost and that we try to fulfill with other things which never work.

Unfortunately, I had to leave before the end of the talk but I'm intrigued enough to pick up his book.  I know he takes the position that the war on drugs is not working and he is pro-legalization.  I'm not sure what other changes he proposes.   I recently heard Gabor Mate discussing the war on drugs, saying "the war on drugs is a war on people".   And he's right.  When has a war ever brought more health?  The war is worse than the drug.  Especially if it leads to more community fragmentation.

A song for this post.

Experiment of a benign addict (day 17)

It's official, I am now off caffeine. I quit primarily because I was tired of not having the choice of skipping the coffee unless I was ready to deal with the headache that inevitably would surface roughly six hours later. The move was prompted by my usual supplier of coffee beans not having my favourite beans to sell for days in a row. After a while I started feeling like an addict showing up and sheepishly asking for the beans. And some mornings I would wake up late and be resentful that I couldn't just skip the coffee to gain some time. I know this is a ritual for most adults in this culture and certainly I love the joe but there was this moment where I started feeling ridiculous for being so directed by it. I listened to the moment and thought ok let's just say I don't do this anymore.

A couple days of headaches later, and I'm free. It feels really good and I save time and money. The only thing is, I now have these small urges to reach for my absent cup of coffee. Usually when a moment is uncomfortable or confusing, or if a task hits a wall and I just need some time away from it. It's something between an avoidance mechanism, a sensory reset, and a security blanket. It's been interesting noting when it happens. Now I need to figure out whether I replace it with herbal tea of some kind or just find a new thing to insert into those moments. I think maybe I'll see if every time it happens, I can just become conscious of my breath and relax into a sigh or something. Could be interesting. No doubt this would take care of itself over time but while the contrast is still high, I'll experiment.

A song for this post.