The Sound of my Addiction

“I had a Velcro wallet in a casino. That sound annoyed the hell out of me. Whenever I lost money, and I opened the wallet, it was like the sound of my addiction.”
-Mitch Hedberg

The following is my interpretation of this quote as it pertains to blogging:

I had a WordPress account on my computer.  The sound of fingers manic-ly typing on a keyboard annoyed the hell out of me.  Whenever I lost several hours of my day writing posts, reading others’ posts, and checking stats, and I logged into my account, it was like the sound of my addiction.

Recently, I was awarded a blogging award by the lovely Emily who writes The Waiting.  I love her blog.  I love seeing pictures of her baby.  She’d better be glad we don’t live closer or I may attempt a cuddle attack in a post-Kahlua cake stupor.  If you don’t know about her, and you refuse to click on the link I just provided for you, I’ll assume that you hate yourself and need some therapy.  In that case, process your feelings via your blog, dance it out to some Gaga, and come see me in the morning.

Emily gave me an award I had actually never heard of before:

And then I laughed, cuz there’s that word again.  Addiction.

I have many pet peeves concerning popular misconceptions of therapy or psychological disorders.  The biggest one is that when people use the word schizophrenic to refer to something that may be split or disjointed- this is false.  What you really mean is something closer to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).
But I digress.  I apologize, cuz when I start talking about these misconceptions my eyes often turn the same color of the word addiction above.

Did you know that the word addiction in fact never appears in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV)?   I honestly don’t know where all the rhetoric around the word and its usage came about (perhaps the AA movement?  Anyone know?), but what I can tell you is that the proper diagnoses are basically defined thusly:

substance intoxication – recent ingestion, and showing symptoms of maladaptive behavioral or psychological changes

substance abuse – a maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress

substance dependence – same symptoms from abuse, but you add symptoms of tolerance (a need for more and more of the substance to get the same high) and withdrawal (clinically significant distress or impairment due to cessation or reduction of using the substance) and a few other things like spending massive amounts of time obtaining the substance, etc.

I already diagnosed myself as being dependent on the substance called Draw Something, and I think it’s safe to say that I am dependent on blogging as well.  Add this to my list of neuroses.

Rules for this award are as follows:

1. Tell why I like to blog

2. Nominate ten others for the award

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I like to blog because I eat, sleep, and poop introspection all day everyday.  My first journal entry was when I was 8 years old and got my ears pierced, and I’ve been journaling in some form on and off ever since.  For a while I even created audio journals with my friends when cassettes were cool and boomboxes were plentiful.

I decided to start a blog because I wanted to add another dimension to my personal, no-one-ever-read-this-or-I-will-chop-your-pinky-fingers-off diary.  Writing helps me to figure out who I am, what I like, what’s really important to me.  Plus, I realized that I was only writing in my diary when I felt mad or sad, and I wanted a record of happy, funny times as well.  I also went looking for community.  Feedback.  Conversation.  And I got it, boy howdy.

There’s also the part where I make my living by listening to people’s problems, and while I love doing that, I also like the chance to get my turn to speak.  So speak I shall.

Here’s a list of the blogs I enjoy reading the most (aside from The Waiting), and I’m probably dependent on them, considering I can’t get enough (also considering I get the shakes if I am away for too long):

Sweet Mother – She’s insightful, she’s eloquent, and she’s frickin funny.

Words for Worms – She loves books more than I love therapy!

Family Haikus – Hilarious stories about family life, plus poetry.

A Clown on Fire – Read at your own risk.

Never Contrary – I admire her skill of saying so much with so few words.

Speaker7 – She recrapped all of 50 Shades of Grey.  There’s nothing this woman can’t do.

Words Become Superfluous – Like word of the day for grown ups, plus Harry Potter references.

Raising My Rainbow – An awesome mom raising a gender-creative son.

Canadica – Where Canada and America form one hilarious blog.

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