Junkie Mentality

In the 60's and 70's I did my share of drugs, a lot of drugs. I'm not ashamed to admit I shot heroin, morphine, ate large quantities of LSD, smoke lots of hash/weed, and whatever. I didn't get hep C or B, hurray for me. I skipped those.

I've also been addicted to sex, alcohol, cigarettes/tobacco, and of course my latest drug of choice, food.  I'm an American, we do everything in excess. I tried heroin largely out of peer pressure. A lot of my friends were trying it, experimenting.  The thing I figured out rather quickly was that it seemed to me that people were getting hooked on the needle and not the drug. In other words it was all about the ritual, not just the high or the low. Going to a "bad" neighborhood, buying an illegal substance, maybe you'll get busted, cops and robbers bullshit, getting the vain exposed with your belt, cooking it up with the cotton, holding the needle is in your mouth, shooting the hot liquid, all the fucking drama. After all, by the time you got the shit it had been stepped on, or cut, so many times you were lucky if you were shooting 2 maybe 3 percent smack. I figured people liked to mutilate themselves by stabbing that spike in their arms. Like these kids that are cutters today. The junkies were getting just as high from poking that needle into their arms as they were from the dope. You keep doing it, and before you know, it becomes a habit. Then you look around an see what the needle has done to their lives and you say to yourself; "I'm not going to ruin my life over this shit."

Some people pull their hair out, one strand at a time, tichotillomania. It's called a disorder, but if you do it all the time then it's a habit i.e., an addiction.

Where the hell am I headed here you might ask. I'm getting there. With cigarettes, it was the tobacco, the lighters, the hard pack, soft pack, ashtrays, air fresheners, the paraphernalia. It was also the act of putting the cigarette up to the mouth. It was an oral fixation. One of the tricks I used to help me quit smoking 25 years ago was to carry a thick plastic straw that I cut to the same size as a cigarette. I kept it in my shirt pocket, and every time I had the urge to smoke I pulled it out, stuck it in my mouth, and said to myself; "In with the good air, out with the bad air." Stupid, but it helped me quit.
Kicking cigarette was a big accomplishment for me.

Sex was more like heroin than cigarettes, but there was that LARGE oral component there as well. Instead of stabbing myself with a needle I was stabbing a wet hole with my pecker. There was definitely a time there when sex preoccupied my life. Many years to be exact. I dodged the bullet on the disease end of that one too. Around about the age of 30 my drive for rather meaningless intimacy diminished, and I was looking for more in a relationship than an orgasm or multiple orgasms. It's way more complicated than that, but you get my thrust, pun intended.

Alcohol is a whole other thing, but one can certainly see the oral correlation there as well. The booze and the cigarette go together. I still drink and I love a beer or wine once in a while. I can't do the excess anymore, and I can't handle the hangovers. I can't waste a whole day getting over something. I got to many things I want to accomplish, and I'm just too damn busy.

I've had friends, good people, talented beyond compare, but I had to let them go because I could not stand to watch them ruin their lives because of the bottle, the dope, or because of some destructive relationship. It's like; "If I'm still around give me a call when you get over this."

So, where this is all leading is to the oral fixation of overeating, like cigarette, booze, or smoking pot. The act of the spoon, fork, chop sticks, hand to the mouth aspect of overeating may be just as powerful as the food in the mouth, the chewing, food going down the throat, into the stomach, feeling full, aspect of eating. This is only one component of overeating, but a strong one non the less.

I'm thinking about finding another tool like I did with cigarettes that might help me when I get the cravings. Today I had some powerful cravings and almost gave in to what would have been a great tasting meal, but not good for me. A year is a long time to wrestle with urges. I know chewing gum can help, so I'll try that, but gum has a large amount of sugar, so do lollipops, etc.

Maybe I substituted food for drugs, booze, cigs, sex, who the fuck knows. People overeat for a myriad  of reasons. I'm not giving up food I'm simply relearning to eat more healthy again. I'm trying to find my way back to when I ate the way we are supposed to. I'm going to try and come up with some food pacifier that will help.

If anyone who reads this has any ideas, suggestions, or knows of some product to help with oral fixation please send it along my way.

Peace,

Make Food/Not War

Food Consumption 12-29-12

Breakfast: 1 hardboiled egg, cereal, soy milk and banana

Lunch: finished the tilapia, and had a big salad with red bell peppers, olives, dandelion greens, frisee', cherry tomatoes, radishes, and my special vinaigrette dressing

Dinner: 3 falafels with mustard fried with grape seed oil, large salad with the usual, 1 cup wild rice
             7 or 8 olives of Provence

Snacks: orange juice, raisins/nuts