Yesterday I experienced a few fleeting thoughts about drinking. The first came as my daughter and I walked into a Red Robin. She’s learning how to drive and I surprised her by having her take us to Red Robin where we have a tradition of ordering the Onion Ring Tower and me a beer, or two. Thus, a discourse with addiction was inevitable.
Zero ; Octet ; M: 158 ; C: 120 ; P/U: Rest ; W: 5 mi
No Weigh In
The hostess led us past the bar. On the wall of beer taps, at the very end, closet to me was one of my all time favorite beers: Lagunitas IPA. The Little Rascals-eque dog on the tap looked at me knowingly, mischievously.
Addiction Sees Its Opportunity
Just as I suspected in yesterday’s post, Drinkie was just playing coy. The voice of addiction isn’t just lingering around the periphery of your mind because it feels dejected. It’s waiting for opening and an opportunity to pounce. And here it was, finally, after eight long days. As predicted, Drinkie sprung into action.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy a frosty pint of Lagunitas with your burger?” Drinkie whispered.
To his entreaty, I replied simply, “Hello, Drinkie. How are you today?”
“To be honest, I’d be a lot better if I had a beer.”
“Well, Drinkie, I completely understand, but that’s not happening today.”
“Why not?”
“Because I made a commitment to wait until after Thanksgiving. I’m also working to get my first Thrice Lucky and would like to be under 200 pounds. So, not today.”
“When then?”
“I’ll let you know. Bye, bye.”
And in the few seconds in which this strange internal conversation happened, we had passed the bar and Drinkie was gone. I had RAIN’d on his addiction parade, yet again. By the end of our little discussion, I was seated at our table ordering an ice tea.
Candy in a Pinch
After failing in his full frontal assault, Drinkie made a few more glancing attempts to grab my attention, but he was no match for the power of RAIN combined with the tactic of addiction transfer.
To shut him up, I eventually bribed him with the dopamine induced rush produced from a couple pieces of leftover Halloween candy. Hence no ‘+’ today.
Hey, look I’m not above using all the arrows in my quiver. If I need to invoke addiction transfer by using a couple pieces of candy to my advantage, then so be it. It’s a useful trick to have up my sleeve when I need it, as long as I use it sparingly.
It’s also powerful to understand fully what I am doing with the candy. If I was just mindlessly eating piles of candy and didn’t know why, I’d inadvertently swap alcohol addiction for obesity and diabetes. Hardly a trade worth doing. Mindfulness of reason and definiteness of purpose is key in proper utilization of this tactic.
And that’s the name of the game here. Mindful approaches to life’s challenges. It’s having a complete awareness of what I am doing and why, and how doing or not doing that thing will impact my long term goals and aspirations.
And then living with the consequences: good, bad, or indifferent.
