Don’t wake the beast~

This past April, was year 8 without cigarettes! It’s been so long that I actually thought it was 9 years. Kinda like that confusing feeling I get when I try to recall how old I am when I can’t figure out which age range box to check on those pesky demographic questionnaires. It was so much harder to stop smoking for me, then it was to quit drinking. It took me 14 months to finally quit smoking. The smoking took the place of drinking. I smoked like I drank. It’s the same mindset, same obsession and compulsion.

It’s very common to swap once addiction for another. I can still do it with other things in my life... shopping, social media scrolling, Netflix and eating can be some big ones for me. My brain still fires in ways that I can fall down a rabbit hole of feel good behaviors, and dopamine hits.

When I was still eating non-dairy ice cream (Ben & Jerry’s Netflix n chill, so yum), I found myself worrying that I only had one more serving left (the containers were so damn small). I then started thinking about when I could go to the store the next day to get more. Which store did I want to go to? Or should I just have a few couple bites so I could make it last one more day? That my friends is a tiny snapshot of what my brain did with alcohol. I planned my day around it.

I have a love hate relationship with my “Weekly Screen Time Report”. I never realized all those little brief check-ins on my phone (really swore they were just minutes) somehow turned into hours. After watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix, it makes complete sense how that happens. Especially with someone like myself that needs constant dopamine surges. This leads nicely into my next addictive behavior; Netflix.

I can’t just watch one. That’s why I often enjoy my alone time watching my “drama-filled” shows (as my husband likes to call them). Wow… I just realized I described enjoying watching shows in isolation so I don’t get looked at funny for wanting to watch four in a row. The irony.

When you can recognize what is happening in the moment of that powerful pull, you understand that the addiction, the beast, as I like to call it, is always there. I have to apply the same recovery principles to those other behaviors as I did the alcohol. It’s finding a balance, and knowing what works for me.

I still have the same addictive brain, but I am so grateful to have learned healthier coping skills, and can make better choices (more days than not). I will take a poor food choice coma over a hangover fueled by alcohol and cigarettes any day.