Chapter 11: The Longcut of
Addiction
At the
convergence of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean, two great bodies of
water collide, the surging Columbia River flowing west and heavy Pacific waves
moving east, setting the stage for disasters. A strip of land jutting into this
fray is appropriately named Cape Disappointment. Approximately 2,000 ships and
about a thousand people experienced the ultimate disappointment here—losing
their lives. This area is aptly known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific.” What
makes Cape Disappointment so dangerous? It’s a combination of geography and the
forces of nature, including the triangular shaped coastline, the narrow channel
through which the river flows, and weather that can become suddenly violent.
And there’s a sandbar, an ever-present and growing obstacle. When the river
water hits the sandbar, it drops
silt and sand, which over the years has built a fan-shaped sandbar that extends
six miles into the ocean. And then there are people. If people didn’t want to
transact business, or vacation, or pit themselves against the forces of nature,
the waters could continue to churn and storms rage without harm. But the fact
that Cape Disappointment continues to draw people and vessels makes safety a
major concern. Lighthouses, the modern technologies of dredging, and the
building of jetties have helped to make the crossing safer. And the presence of
the United States Coast Guard nearby also helps. It’s from this station, which
is the perfect environment in which to train cadets in extreme weather and surf
conditions, that rescues are made. Every year the Coast Guard saves both
pleasure and work vessels and lives, but the log is long of major
shipwrecks—ships that were stranded, sunk, or simply disappeared.
Unfortunately, on this list of casualties are Coast Guard vessels and guardsmen
who lost their lives while attempting to save others’ lives and vessels. If you
go to Cape Disappointment at low tide you can see the remains of a fishing boat
named Bettie M which ran aground in 1976 directly beneath the Cape
Disappointment Lighthouse. Rescue efforts failed and the 900 tons on tuna on
board could not be saved. For months the locals had to endure the stench of
rotting tuna.
Cape Disappointment is like
addicting behaviors. Not everyone who travels to or from Cape Disappointment is
shipwrecked. Not everyone who participates in potentially addicting behaviors
becomes an addict. But just going to Cape Disappointment greatly increases your
risk of loss, as does participating in any potentially addicting longcut. What
would you say to someone who every few days or even every few hours had to go to Cape Disappointment? You’d
recognize a person with an addiction. You’d see a person who was willing to
risk everything. Addiction is defined as the persistent,
compulsive use of a substance or behavior known by the user to be harmful.
If you figuratively go repeatedly to Cape Disappointment, your life will be
disappointing to you and to your loved ones.
The
greatest damage caused by addictions is that the brain is actually changed,
making the addict a different person than he or she is when sober. (Sober is used in all addictions to mean not using or clean. There’s a sobriety calendar online that will calculate for
the addict how many minutes, hours, and days an addict has been sober. See www.aahistory.com/days.html.)
On the sides of our local garbage trucks is written “A mind is a terrible thing
to waste,” with a plea to parents to talk to their teens about addictive
substances. Talking to teens is a good idea, and so is teaching children from
their earliest years how to resist and persist. A parent’s example of delaying
gratification is also a significant in this process. If a parent’s words are
inconsistent with his/her actions, well, you know actions yell and words
whisper. So in discussing addictions, it’s fitting to draw the parallel
back to two marshmallows. Those of us who can balance needs and wants and delay
gratification find non-addicting ways to soothe pains, disappointments, and
even, yes, how to be cool. If I understand how to seek and satisfy pleasure in
healthy ways, I avoid longcuts. Those of us who have staying power will
distract ourselves and focus on obtaining the second marshmallow. Addictive
personalities are willing to put in jeopardy their looks, their brains, their
futures, their bodies, their families, their lives. Every time an addictive
substance or behavior is used, a longer and wider sandbar is being built,
creating more and more chance of personal shipwreck and stinking like rotting
tuna.
Seven addictions are discussed below. As you
know libraries are full of books on each of these addictions. Deciding what to
include in the very limited space allotted for each addiction was difficult.
The question always was: What facts will be most motivational to convince
readers of the dangers of each addiction? As I researched, I downloaded about
twenty thousand words for each addiction and then synthesized the information
into three to five hundred words. Three particularly helpful Internet sites
were: www.myaddiction.com, the National Institute on Drug
Addiction, www.nida.nih.gov,
and www.Mayoclinic.com.
Caffeine
Caffeine is the world’s most widely used mood-altering
drug. About 75% of the population drinks it daily in the form of soda pop, tea,
or coffee. Millions can’t start the day without a cup of coffee or cola drink,
and estimates are that about 75% of children also consume caffeine daily.
Drinking coffee may seem as common as drinking water, but it comes with
significant risk. Caffeine is absorbed in the body within 30 to 45 minutes and
wears off in about three hours. Caffeine’s medical name is trimethylxanthine, which doctors use to stimulate
the heart or to increase urine production as a diuretic. Caffeine increases blood pressure, breathing rate,
heart rate, and body temperature. It can cause an irregular heartbeat, increase
cholesterol, disrupt sleep patterns, cause anxiety, depression, ulcers of the
stomach, headaches, jitteriness, convulsions, and even serious mental
confusion. The millions and millions who drink it daily don’t pay much
attention to the physical and emotional changes or calculate the risks because
it seems so normal, so routine. But when more alertness is wanted to finish a
project or drive another three hours, extra caffeine is purposefully ingested
in energy and jolt drinks. The truth is that even though caffeine’s effects are
not as dire as amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin, caffeine works the same way
in the body and is an addictive drug. Millions are addicted to caffeine, and as
with all addictions, the body continually needs more to get the same result.
You will be healthier if you become caffeine independent. (If you are thinking
that drinking decaf may be the solution, please read labels closely because the
decaffeination process can still leave some caffeine.)
Alcohol
It
is estimated that one in twelve Americans is an alcoholic. Alcohol use and
abuse are so closely related that the habitual user may slide into addiction
easily. If that were the extent of the problem, it would be bad enough, but
about half the population has a family member with a drinking problem. On average,
each alcoholic negatively affects the lives of four to five others—wife or
husband, children, other family members, employer, friends, and victims of
accident the alcoholic causes. The alcoholic affects no one positively, except
those who witness the ravages and vow never to be like that. Certain races and
cultures are more likely to become alcoholics than others. Of the two genders,
women are more likely to abuse alcohol. Studies also show that those who start
using alcohol before age fifteen are four times more likely to become
alcoholics compared to those who start drinking at twenty-one, the legal
drinking age. “The highest prevalence of both binge and
heavy drinking in 2001 was for young adults aged 18 to 25, with the peak rate
occurring at age 21. The rate of binge drinking was 38.7 percent for young
adults and 48.2 percent at age 21…. Among youths aged 12 to 17, an estimated
17.3 percent used alcohol in the month prior to the survey interview” (http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/GettheFacts).
As horrific as these statistics are, they don’t highlight other alcohol-related
ills. (Statistics vary according to different agencies. The numbers used here
are ballpark figures.) 70% of felonies; 65% child-beatings; 40% of forcible
rapes; 80% of wife-batterings; 70% of stabbings; 80% of homicides, either the
attacker or the victim or both had been drinking; up to 90% of incest; 50% of
suicides are alcohol-related; 45% of welfare aid goes to drinkers; 33% of all
divorces; 46% of all traffic fatalities; 21%
of nonfatal injury crashes; 10%
of property-damage-only crashes. Total losses to the nation from alcohol
problems were estimated at $148 billion in 1993 by MADD. The truth is that 100%
of people of the world are impacted negatively by the abuse of alcohol which
makes us all poorer and more at risk. It is impossible to measure the cost to
society in financial and opportunity cost and loss or to number the wrecked
lives on the sandbar of alcohol.
·
Nicotine
Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. It is nicotine
that provides the good feeling that draws smokers and chewers back for more and
more. Each cigarette contains about 10 mg of nicotine. Tobacco products kill about 440,000 each
year, which is more than were killed in World War II and the Vietnam War.
Diseases linked to tobacco use include: heart disease, stroke, and cancers in
the lung, kidney, larynx, head, neck, head, and breast. If you smoke, your
chance of a fatal heart attack is
70 percent greater than it is for nonsmokers. Coronary heart disease
is the leading cause of death in the United States and smoking is a leading
cause of heart disease. Tobacco causes about 87% of
lung cancers. Over 100,000 American smokers die of lung cancer every year. The use of tobacco is the most preventable
cause of death in the United States. Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals. Secondhand smoke can cause the
same diseases as actually smoking does. Those particularly at risk for heart
disease are non-smokers who live with smokers. Lung cancers and infections,
pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma attacks, ear infections, perhaps even breast
cancer are caused or made worse by secondhand smoke. Each year, nearly 35
million people try to quit smoking. Less than 7% succeed in abstaining for more than
one year. Most persons who “quit” begin smoking again within seven days. (The
Search for A Safe Cigarette, NOVA (PBS), October 2001). Smoking is literally burning up your money. The
story is told of the woman whose husband smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. She
tried to convince him of the health risks and also of the waste of money. Then
she decided to take the same amount of money he spent on cigarettes and put it
in a saving account in her name. A few years later, her husband came home from
work to see a beautiful grand piano in his living room. He was shocked and
angry that she would spend so much money without his permission. She calmly
told him that the piano cost the same amount he had spent in cigarettes. As the
story goes, he never smoked again. The best fact about smoking is that quitting
reduces these risks no matter how long you’ve been smoking.
Drugs
The most commonly abused drugs are caffeine, nicotine,
and alcohol. The most commonly abused drugs are marijuana, cocaine, and pain relievers.
It is estimated that 5,000 try drugs for the first time daily. This is where
the emphasis should be and the question answered: How can we get to those 5,000
who will use for the first time today and the 5,000 new users tomorrow and the
5,000 new users the day after tomorrow and convince them not to enter the
longcut of drug abuse? If we can save them from first-time use, they will be
saved from the health problems of casual use and the brain-changing,
life-wasting effects of dependency and addiction. Of course the same is true
for all substance abuse problems. Because marijuana is many times the first
illegal substance taken, what can you say to convince someone that marijuana
dumbs you down? You can present the facts: your brain will be adversely
affected; you will have difficulty remembering and concentrating; your reaction
time will be slowed down; your appetite will increase; your eyes will be red;
your blood pressure and heart rate will increase; and you’ll become paranoid.
(You may joke about being paranoid, but it is no joke. Paranoia is a psychiatric condition, a personality disorder that
negatively affects all relationships.) Mayoclinic.com lists symptoms and
behaviors of drug abusers by speaking directly to the user: You will have the “feeling
that you have to use the drug regularly — this can be daily or even several
times a day; failing in your attempts to stop using the drug; making certain
that you maintain a supply of the drug; spending money on the drug even though
you can't afford it; doing things to obtain the drug that you normally wouldn't
do, such as stealing; feeling that you need the drug to deal with your
problems; driving or doing other risky activities when you're under the
influence of the drug; focusing more and more time and energy on getting and
using the drug.” Probably some who are presented this evidence in a sensitive
and forthright way will not try drugs, but some will. If you asked them why,
they would answer something such as: “I’m different. Those negative things may
happen to other people but they won’t happen to me. They only happen to other
people who are not as disciplined or smart as I am.” You’ve heard that lie
before. As you know, every one of us is other people’s other people. Many
crimes are a direct result of drug use to an even to a greater degree than
alcohol. Estimates are that about 75-percent of all crime is drug related. The
drug abuser is a prisoner of his habit. He or she will do whatever it takes to
get more.
Shopping
Compulsive shopping has a scientific name—omniomania and
plagues about one in every twenty Americans. Omniomania was first called designer disease in 1915. Shopping
addicts can’t control their urge to shop. A person with a shopping addiction
will continue to buy even if his or her job, marriage, family life, and
finances are jeopardized. According to history, Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of
President Lincoln, was addicted to shopping. She had eighty-four pair of
gloves, and Imelda Marcos is said to have three thousand pairs of shoes. The
shopping addict must shop even though they feel embarrassed and try to hide
their purchases. Compulsive shoppers may spend all day in the mall or on the
Internet. As you might suspect, most individuals addicted to shopping are
women, but men become addicted in the same way to collectables. Clothing, shoes
and CDs are in the top five items purchased for both men and women. Women also
buy jewelry and makeup. Men also purchase electronics and hardware. There are
unbelievable stories on the Internet of men and woman who report spending three
to five thousand dollars in an hour. A woman confessed that when she finds a
shirt or skirt she likes, she buys one in every color available. One man owns
thirty cell phones. The surprising aspect of compulsive shopping is that you
don’t have to be rich; in fact, shopping addiction affects every
social-economic group. I have personally been acquainted with a person with an
Internet shopping addiction. Packages would arrive at her house almost daily.
She tried to hide her addiction, but finally there was no room to hide anything
else, and her husband found the credit card statements she had kept from him.
Her family had to take away her checkbooks and credit cards and she could never
shop without a list and a family member accompanying her. If you feel you or
someone you know has a shopping addiction, to meet the profile the desire to
shop has to control the person’s life. He or she has to be completely
preoccupied with shopping. "Patients… typically describe… a baseline
preoccupation with shopping, they're always thinking about it, and a tension
builds and they have to satisfy that tension by going out and shopping. That
relieves the tension, at least for the time being…. Some shop out of
loneliness, others for the rush of it, still others to fill some inner need.
Some seek greater self-esteem, others use it to battle depression. Some shop to
return to a happy childhood, others to escape a bad one” (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/savinganddebt/p58684.asp).
Gambling
About
two million adults are addicted to gambling and double or triple that number
are “problem” gamblers. As you would anticipate, gamblers’ moods rise and fall
with the winnings and losings, and their mood swings can be great. They also
become very good at rationalizing and lying to cover their addiction. Blaming
others is one way to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, including
what is needed to overcome the problem.
When John’s wife served him divorce papers, he said: “I
don’t know how she can be so selfish. Sure I spend a lot of time at the casino,
but I am doing it for our family. She doesn’t understand that there are ups and
downs in poker. So finances have been a little tight. I just need a little time
to get it back. I know how to work the table. I just get such a rush from a
good game. Everyone is pitting their skills against you, and if you bet big you
win big.”
“After her husband and children are asleep, Amy spends
hours in front of the computer gambling online. ‘It’s my time to zone out and
escape. Everyone puts so much pressure on me during the day. The time passes so
quickly, I look up and hours have gone by.’ The family is behind on bills and
has been getting threatening calls from collectors on past debts. ‘I honestly
don’t know where the money is going. I really don’t spend that much.’ However,
her angry husband has found the online gambling losses add up to hundreds of
dollars a month. One month it was three thousand dollars”
(http:helpguide.org/mental/gambling_addiction.htm). These two examples sound like gambling addicts
gamble every day. This is not necessarily the case. How often may not be an
indication of how serious the addiction is, but, and this is the absolute
truth, every person addicted to gambling will eventually become bankrupt. No
one can afford to gamble, and money isn’t the only thing lost. It’s time,
opportunity, and most importantly, trust. Relationships, as with all other
addiction, are one of the casualties of gambling. How the family responds when
the severity of the gambling is discovered is crucial.
Most
people who are unfamiliar with the addition of gambling will think that paying
off the gambler’s debt will solve the problem. This
tendency to shove it under the rug and help him or her take care of the debt
that has built up is like giving free alcohol to the alcoholic, more drugs to
the drug addict, or paying for a shopping trip for the shopping addict. Bailing
out any addict makes matters worse. Compulsive gamblers will continue gambling
no matter what. That’s what addiction means. Agency is lost. The addict cannot
stop without intervention and/or therapy. The problem with addictions such as
shopping and gambling is that they can be kept hidden for a long time.
Eventually, however, the addict will get caught. Sooner or later, all resources
to get more money will close off while the need to gamble will remain constant
or increase to cover past losses. Savings may disappear. Jewelry may be pawned.
Friends and family may be asked to loan money. If you suspect gambling, watch
for unexplained cash advances on bank or credit card statements. The addict may
give a hundred excuses and reasons why gambling isn’t the problem. In the
gambler’s mentality, not enough money is the problem.
Food
The three basic types of food addictions are: anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive eating. If
you think women are more likely to abuse food than men, you would be correct.
However, the gap is narrowing. In 2010, the ratio of anorexic men compared to
females with anorexia is one man to every four woman. For bulimia, the ratio is
one to eight. Binge eating is equally divided between men and women. One in
five young women, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, report
they have/had binge-eating symptoms. Food addictions are
especially difficult in that we all have to eat several times every day, making the line between what’s
normal and what’s an addiction hard to determine. Because food is necessary for life, because proper
nutrition is necessary for health, and because so much of our sociability and
our traditions hinge on food, addicts feel out of control because they can’t
just quit eating. As you know in every addiction, the person becomes preoccupied with a substance or behavior until it takes
over life. Like all addictions, food is just the substance or activity
of choice used to relieve stress, worry, fear, or abuse. Just as a shopping addiction is not about
shopping, a food addiction is not about food. The
range of attitudes towards food is wide with a food addiction. The compulsive
eater can gain pleasure with every aspect of food—thinking about it, planning
the next meal, shopping for it, eating out, cooking, trying new recipes, and,
of course, the actual eating. They may hide food to eat later. They may
even steal to get food. When the food addiction takes the form of eating less
than needed to maintain health, the diagnosis is anorexia nervosa. Anorexics
try to hide the fact that they aren’t eating. They may become so desperate,
however, that they may steal to get laxatives, diuretics, Ipecac, herbal
remedies, or diet aids to neutralize the food they do eat. Enemas
may also become part of the anorexic’s life.
People with anorexia set goals to weigh far less than normal for their height
and age. They also become consumed with thoughts of food, but instead of
over-eating, the person becomes addicted
to thoughts of how not to eat or how little to eat. They will exercise
excessively and/or starve themselves. (I know a grandma who exercises four
hours every day.) The person with anorexia becomes thinner and thinner but
never thin enough. To a person with anorexia, thinness equals self-worth. All
food addictions may become life-threatening, especially those with anorexia.
Mayoclinic.com lists anorexia symptoms: “Skipping meals, making
excuses for not eating, eating only a few certain ‘safe’ foods, usually those
low in fat and calories, adopting rigid meal or eating rituals, such as cutting
food into tiny pieces or spitting food out after chewing, cooking elaborate
meals for others but refusing to eat, repeated weighing of themselves, frequent
checking in the mirror for perceived flaws, complaining about being fat, not
wanting to eat in public.”
In summary, as we review addictive patterns, the
similarities are obvious. No matter what the addiction of choice is—caffeine,
nicotine, alcohol, illegal drugs, gambling, shopping, food—the results are the
same. The addict loses agency as he or she becomes more and more focused on the
substance or behavior. When longcuts of addiction are entered, doors close and
opportunities disappear. As long as the addiction is the most important aspect
of a person’s life, the rest of his or her life is like the Bette M, run
aground and rotting. Family and friends watch the decay and smell the stench of
a shipwrecked life.
The most frightening aspect of addictions is that there
are so many of them. The potential of falling prey to one is an ever-present
threat. Myaddiction.com
lists twenty-seven addictions and we’ve only touched on seven with one more to
come. Their alphabetical list reads: “Alcohol, Ambien, Amphetamine, Benzodiazepine, Caffeine, Cocaine, Crack, Eating
Disorders, Ecstasy, Gambling, Heroin, Hydrocodone, Internet, Marijuana, Meth, Opioid, Percocet, Pornography, Prescription Drug, Ritalin, Sex, Shopping, Smoking, Sugar, Video Game, Work, and Xanax.” And this list is not all inclusive. Most
anything done in excess that causes you to abandon normal life can be
addictive.
So if you have an addiction, what
should you do? If you have unsuccessfully tried to quit, the next step is to
tell someone you trust—a family member, a minister, a counselor—and ask for their
help. If that person isn’t able to help you for whatever reason, tell another
trusted person. It may be, however, that no one will step forward to help. You
may need to arrange treatment or seek counseling by yourself. An interesting
fact about treatment programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous is how many people
go once or twice and never return. At every intersection, you will have to push
forward. After you try to quit on your own, push forward to the next step.
After you tell someone and ask for their help, push forward to the next step.
As you work through the stages of recovery, push forward. At each juncture the
temptation will be to return to the substance or behavior. Please don’t. You
are fighting to regain your agency. You are fighting to regain you. If you are
expecting recovery to be easy, know that it won’t be. It won’t be fun. It may
not be cheap. It may not be quick. Remember, you are at war, and war as General
Sherman said to the mayor of Atlanta, “is hell.” Overcoming your addiction may
be the hardest thing you’ll ever do, but you can do it. You are fighting a war
you can win.
What should you do if you know
someone who is hiding an addiction? One choice is to look the other way and do
nothing. Another choice is to tell the person face to face that you know, but
do nothing. Another choice is to tell the person not only that you know but
also that you are willing to help. And of course, if you have been allowing the
addiction to continue emotionally, financially, socially, or intellectually,
you may also have an addiction to overcome. In many cases, the healing process
begins when the enabler breaks the co-dependent pattern. If you are enabling,
this might mean you stop making excuses or telling lies to cover for the
addict. This might mean you stop giving the addict money. This might mean you
stop protecting the addict from the natural consequences of the addiction. You
can do these things. What you cannot do is make the addict stop using against
his or her will. All the support, counseling, treatment, love, and compassion
in the whole world cannot make a person clean and sober unless he or she so
chooses. Your job is not to enable or be co-dependent. Your job is not to give
up on the addict. Your job is to keep offering your help and encouraging
him/her to use less frequently and seek help. If you are a praying person, your
job it to keep the addict in your prayers. If you saw a person thrashing about
in a swimming pool, gasping for air, you wouldn’t walk away or pretend it
wasn’t happening. You wouldn’t read him/her a book on water safety. You
wouldn’t have him/her watch a video on the dangers of swimming. No. You would
act and do what you could to keep the person alive until he/she accepted the
opportunity of rescue by reaching up to your outstretched hand, or by grabbing
the end of a pole you are holding, or by clutching the floatation device you
threw to him/her. Helping someone overcome an addiction is saving a life.
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