The Beginning

I've been up since 3:30 this morning. To keep sane and not just stare at the roof I picked up Gabor Mate's "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction", it took me to 7am, when I was supposed to have an appointment with my addictions counsellor. Last we talked, I told him I would take 10 days off of smoking and send him a list every day of 1 thing I enjoyed each hour. I took 2 days off total out of this 10, and sent him my notes maybe 3 nights. In guilt, I think this is why he didn't meet with me this morning; as some sort of punishment when in all realities he probably either forgot or had something come up. We are all human. I feel personally ashamed of my "addictions" to smoking, yet even as I type about them I crave them. I grew up with undiagnosed OCD, so you shouldn't be surprised that my mind has always worked rather obsessively. The first addiction, as I can recall, was staring at the sun. I didn't know it would hurt my eyes, or even if I did, I didn't care. I liked the way I could shake my eyes around really fast and have this light illusion stay there. I don't know how else to describe it. Around the same time, I read one of the Narnia books and had a babysitter named Christine. I combined the 2 into a fantasy world in my head, where in I was in complete control. Next came the Sims, a world where my control was ultimate and I could make the people in it as successful as I wanted to be. I thought that "workaholic" was a good trait, and that if I could only just keep making successful Sims, maybe, somehow, I would be feel fulfilled. Of course, I don't think my 10 year old brain consciously knew this but in hindsight it is what I have come to believe. I shaped my life around these fantasies, and as I grew, so did they.