I seem to have become addicted to walking. I can't understand why I've never done this before. I've started NEEDING to go for a walk everyday. I grab my ipod and head down the street, along the creek. Today, I took Thor for a walk, but his back was hurting, so we turned back halfway through the normal trek. Plus, we weren't going too fast. I didn't feel like I'd had my walk. After dinner, I had to go again.
I don't know about those endorphins, or the hormone issues, or any of that stuff. But I find I need to leave and to sweat and to breathe hard. And I used to walk with friends all the time, to be social. But I never got the same rush out of it that I do now. I just got home, and I'd like to go walk again. I have other things I need to do
I've had other "addictions". Most notably, an addiction to the internet. It's morphed over the years. I'm still addicted. I check sites, email, pages, compulsively. Addiction to reading. I can't get enough. I can't put the book down once I've started. Addictions to people. I'm working on that one. Addiction to sugar. I start eating sweets, and I eat every single one until they are gone from the house. I've toned down my wine/Jack consumption, because I didn't want that to become an addiction. And because I hate hangovers.
I'm not trying to make light of other people's addictions to harmful substances. I'm just saying that I'm noticing this tendency in myself to get so consumed by the need for... _____ (internet/wine/books/sugar/whathaveyou) that I don't stop, until way past the time has come to stop.
At least the sugar addiction is being balanced out by the walking addiction. Of course, the sugar addiction has had the upper hand for many years now. I've got a ways to go to catch up.
9 comments:
I don't want to start rambling about my own addictions, it either will make you sick, or blow you off of your trail - walking. I would never do such a thing.
I think it isn't so much the addiction itself as the compulsion to do it no matter what, obsessively, that becomes a problem. Something as reasonable as checking your email becomes ridiculous when you have to check it every few minutes, over and over, even knowing nothing is there. Something as bad for you as ... well, lets just go with whiskey, it being legal and all... is really only bad for you when you keep going past the point of reason.
Maybe this is a bad post. Because I do know that I live a very vanilla life, and I really have nothing to complain about.
I do have a control issue though, and I hate not being in control of some of these compulsions I get.
I know exactly what you are saying. Once I was in between jobs several year ago, and every morning instead of looking for jobs online, I would sit with my laptop and play solitaire - for 3-4 hours straight. I couldn't kick that habit. Thank god some recruiter found my resume online and found a job for me otherwise I might still be glued to my dining room chair playing solitaire on my laptop.
I also have addiction to some sweet things (not all though). Like if I know there is a cheesecake in the fridge, I keep opening it and getting a forkful until it is all gone.
Walking is an addiction for me as well. I can be tired to so anything else, but always ready to walk.
ok, I have a lot more to say, but this comment is getting way too long :)
That's OK, I like long comments :)
I was reading an article not too long ago about addictive personalities and how they can really unbalance people's lives. Maybe that is what you are dealing with?
It might be. I had a lot of ancestors in the old days who had alcoholism addictions. But in the old days, didn't EVERYONE have alcohol problems? I was just talking with one of Thor's cousins about how the bar used to open at 7 AM and all the old timers would be in line waiting to go in. Then would hang out there all day.
7 a.m.? Oh, my! The mind boggles at the thought!
Imagine what they would have been like if they could have turned that energy to work.
I think it becomes a problem when we do not think that it is a problem. Does that make sense? :-)
As long as we are aware that it might be a problem, or that it is wrong, we will take measures to rectify the problem.
OK...one comment as a partial bystander (sorry I can't be impartial)..you're addictions or obsessions are not out of control. Sue, you have control of all these things. You do them when you wish to which is great and maybe you might do them quite a bit but they do not control or run you life by any means. You have so many interests that I think when you spend time on one, you almost feel guilty about not giving attention to others. Overall I feel you are an extremely well rounded person. Interested in reading, politics, family, music, photography, gardening, camping, boy scouts, people,...not in any order :)
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