32. ADDICTION

​There is wide consensus that addicting drugs are a bad idea. They can obviously suck the life right out of a person. But what is not generally recognized is that there are many other ruinous addictions, many of which are not even recognized as such because of their social acceptance.
 
Actually, life is filled with addictions. We are addicted to eating and sleep, for example. Also, to lesser degrees, we can be addicted to exercise, sex, work, and interpersonal relations. The body and mind are designed to feel comfortable if we do these things. Pleasure chemicals are released to the brain by doing them, and discomfort results when we don't. Addiction to the things that keep us alive and healthy is a survival mechanism.
 
But the leisure and technology of modern life permits the perversion of this pleasure chemical mechanism. In the wild we would never be able to brew coffee every morning, smoke packs of cigarettes a day, drink pop, take drugs, overeat, play video games, snack on sugars, jog obsessively, and the like. Almost anything can become addictive and ruinous to health if we permit it to monopolize life and let society and commercial interests convince us it is hip and normal.
 
How do we know if we are addicted? The thing enslaving us is one of the first things that comes to mind in the morning and the last at night. Life seems incomplete without it. Any threat to its continuance brings on a sense of panic or a defensive rage. Criticism of it results in twisted self-justifying logic. Creative ambition and self-exploration are compromised. Everything is subordinated to the addiction. When health problems arise, they are almost always attributed to something other than the addicting thing.
 
Nobody sets out to be addicted, but we are given to ease; ease creates routine, and routine fosters repetitive acts that lay the seeds of addiction. The modern world also gives us every means and opportunity. Even seemingly innocent behaviors and foods can ruin health over time. The dose makes the poison. Without breaks—which addiction does not permit—the body cannot detoxify and recuperate.
 
Over time, irreversible damage and crippling disease can result. Runners can destroy knees and feet, soda drinkers erode their teeth, caffeine addicts exhaust metabolism, television and computer slaves cripple their minds and subject their eyes and bodies to radiation of unknown danger, and smokers age their skin, loosen their teeth, and ignite the germination of cancer.
 
Since virtually all addicts are in denial, it takes honest self-examination and an open ear to clues from those around us who have our welfare at heart to recognize our addictions. Admit them and break the pattern. Everyone knows enough to rotate the tires. Life needs rotation too or it will wear unevenly.
 
Be alert to addictions creeping into routines and the danger they present not only to health, but also to the freedom we must maintain to be the best we can be.