My Hidden Addiction, and How I’m Kicking It Out of My Life in 4Q 2023

I’m taking my life back

Ever wondered where all your time is going? Ever tried to create that ultimate routine to make every minute of your day count? What happened with that? Did you go back to your usual default routine? What happened?

I’ll tell you what happened and what’s still happening — there’s an addiction lurking somewhere in your lifestyle, and if you’re not aware of it, you won’t be able to change it.

“The first step toward recovery is admitting that the problem exists. We can’t overcome a problem if we don’t admit there is one.” — Vernon Johnson

Why can’t I stick to my plan?

When I began working 16 years ago, I started trying out various schedules for me to you know, work better, be productive, and ultimately conserve enough energy for family time.

So from day 1, I’ve been looking for that perfect routine that would work magic for me. I tried doing this and that without much success. I would stick to it for a time but I always ended up going back to my former routine — that is, no routine at all.

I don’t know why, but every time I try to update my schedule, it always ends up in utter failure. What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stick to my plan? Nobody made it for me, I’m the one who created it, so why can’t I follow through with it? Let’s see if we can trace it back to my childhood.

It all started in my teens

When I was in my teens, I stayed up until late to do things for school. Studying, preparing, and cramming I often do everything at the last moment. I procrastinated for the longest time I can remember. Well, at least I did what was expected of me — I turned in my papers.

The problem is that I wasn’t aware that there were better ways of doing things. I was never taught the mindset of how to get work done, the nature of procrastination, or the concept of Resistance.

So I stuck with my work style, that is, doing things at the last moment, and cramming at night, and until early in the morning if I had to.

I know better now. I think in spite of the work style I grew up on, I always knew deep inside that something was wrong with it. Although I’m getting work done through my persistence, the weight of worries about putting off work and cramming at the last moment was weighing down on me.

My BS and my addiction

I sometimes hear myself saying, “I’m a night owl”, but now that I’m more self-aware I think that’s just bullsh*t I tell myself to justify procrastinating and watching TV all night (usually until dawn). Yes, I have a kind of addiction to TVs, especially, movies.

“Addiction begins with the hope that something ‘out there’ can instantly fill up the emptiness inside.” — Jean Kilbourne

I think I love the feel-good feeling that movies give to me. I love getting ‘inspired’. I think I get my dopamine fix every time I watch a movie. And that gets me going and going until it’s already 3 or 4 in the morning. My wife will sometimes awake and get startled why I’m still up.

“You got to go to work at 7, it’s already 4, what are you doing? Why are you still up?”

“Ah, um, nothing, I’m just… er, I’m gonna sleep now.”

My guilt and my wasted mind

Oftentimes, I feel guilty and I try to slip into bed sneakily so that my wife won’t notice that I’ve been awake all this time. I’m not doing porn, I’m not doing drugs. No, nothing like that. I’m doing movies and the Internet!

But what’s the difference? It’s an addiction, plain and simple. It’s the dopamine rush I get from watching TVs and browsing the net. Then after a few minutes, the dopamine wears off and I don’t feel like doing anything — it’s like when the fix wears off and I’ve transitioned into a wasted state.

“Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change.” — Jamie Lee Curtis

You see, there is also a lot of sneaking off and guilt involved. It reminds me of the kind of sneaking off and guilt I felt every time I lit a cigarette (that was many years ago when I was still addicted to nicotine). And just like before it’s taking its toll on my peace of mind and my self-confidence.

But perhaps its greatest toll on me is with regard to my health.

Effect on my health

At college, I contracted tuberculosis during my first year of attending. I had to stop college for a year to medicate. I often blamed it on a lack of money to buy food — I often starved at school. But now when I think about it, one critical reason my health deteriorated at that time was that I wasn’t having enough sleep.

When I think back, I remember studying at night was the only workable time for me. There was no distraction from my other siblings. I often slept on the couch where I was studying until 2 to 3 a.m. Then I had to get up at 5 a.m. so that I could prepare for 30 minutes and then commute to the university and be there by 7 a.m. Imagine that, 2~3 hours of sleep during the week. No wonder my health deteriorated and I got myself the Big T as a result. Good thing that I recovered.

Fast forward 10 years later. I’m relatively successful. I didn’t have to do much work at home anymore, so I changed it to TV time and booze. Before they were school assignments, but now they’re TVs, mobile phones, and computers — you know, harmless things I enjoy doing.

“Addiction is just a way of trying to get at something else. Something bigger. Call it transcendence if you want, but it’s a journey like a religion is a journey.” — Dan Aykroyd

They’re harmless, right? That depends on the context. My wife sometimes reminds me that sleeping late is bad for my health, but so long as it doesn’t affect my work, she’s generally fine with it.

Unbeknownst to her, it does affect my work. I get so sleepy at the office that I sometimes snooze off. I get by with caffeine and because I know my work just like the back of my hand. My lack of sleep (combined with alcohol) is making me sluggish, wreaking havoc not only on my self-confidence but on my kidneys as well.

I knew it wasn’t getting me anywhere and I knew if I continued living like this it would catch up to me somehow. But I got by, so I just ignored it like the good addict that I was.

Writing saved me

I was done. I’ve already given up. I couldn’t get myself to create another routine because I knew I’ll just f*ck it up again and get depressed about it afterward. But then I started writing this year.

I turned 45 last May and at that time I said to myself, “Half of your life is already over (maybe more), so it’s about time to start what you’ve always dreamed of doing ever since you were a kid. Start writing.”

So I started writing.

Guess what happened? I wasn’t aware of it but my addiction interfered with the writing. I know that my window for writing only opens early in the morning. You see, I have work, I have a wife, and I have kids, and I’m usually all drained up by the time the kids go to sleep at around 9 p.m. So writing in the evening is out of the question.

But if I am to write early in the morning, it means I need to sleep earlier — it means I’ve got to give up something. Obviously, a great conflict ensued in my mind.

It was an evenly-matched fight. In one corner was the challenger, my childhood dream to become a writer, and in another corner was the defending champion, my addiction to screen dopamine.

I wish I could tell you that the challenger beat the sh*t out of the defending champion. Nope, the defending champion was strong and well-entrenched, and often times the challenger got beaten so hard that it had to go no show for days. Then I’d get the courage to start again so the conflict dragged on and on.

“Recovery is not for people who need it, it’s for people who want it.” — Anonymous

But I found out recently that writing has its own magical powers. It has the power to disentangle my entangled mind and come up with insights that I wouldn’t otherwise come up with if I didn’t write about it. It was because I wrote about my late-night escapades that I connected it to the nature of addiction. You see, I wasn’t fully aware of the addiction until I wrote about it.

Getting my life back

Equipt with this new level of awareness, I saw what I was doing for what it really was — a full-blown addiction. I wasn’t getting inspired, I was just getting high with fake dopamine. And I was using my precious sleep time to get dopamine hits that don’t really mean anything. And then I would get wasted and feel tired all day long.

But all of those mentioned were still okay, I could live with it. I’m used to that kind of lifestyle. Remember, I’ve been doing it for decades! But what I couldn’t live with was knowing that I was letting fake dopamine win over a genuine dream of a kid to become a writer.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” — Joseph Campbell

And with that one realization, it all became clear to me. It’s like something has been lifted from my eyes and I began to see everything clearly. I knew I had to let go of my addiction. And this time I know I have the power to follow through — I just know. The match is over — I’ve finally dealt the fatal blow.

4Q 2023 is the turning point in my life where I get my life back on track. And guess what? I’m working on my new routine right now. It’s a work in progress but I think I’m getting closer to having a workable one.

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