12 Steps for TV Addicts

This is adapted from the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which you can read in Chapter 5 of Alcoholics Anonymous. The text before and after the steps themselves is also from Alcoholics Anonymous; in many groups, it is read along with the steps. My only adaptations were changing references to alcohol to "compulsive TV viewing," and changing the masculine references to God ("Him") to "God." These are the same adaptations that other 12-Step groups have made to create a version of the Steps for themselves.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it -- then you are ready to take certain steps.

At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Remember that we deal with compulsive TV viewing -- cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power -- that One is God. May you find God now!

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked God's protection and care with complete abandon.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

1. We admitted we were powerless over compulsive TV viewing -- that our lives had become unmanageable.
   
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
   
3. Made a conscious to decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
   
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
   
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
   
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
   
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
   
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
   
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
   
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
    
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
    
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to TV addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
    

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

1. That we were compulsive TV viewers and could not manage our own lives.
   
2. That probably no human power could have relieved our compulsive TV viewing.
   
3. That God could and would if God were sought.
   

---

I'm going to start working these steps, with one condition on myself. My primary addiction (which I haven't said anything about yet; I will in the future) comes first. And I will not work any step for my TV addiction until I've worked it first for my primary addiction, unless my sponsor tells me to.

Don't hold your breath. Working the steps is a slow, hard, and often painful process. I've seen few addicts complete them in less than two years; most take far longer. (A standing joke in 12-Step groups is the newcomer who arrives expecting to finish his recovery in 12 weeks. He'll do one step a week, and be done.)

What else sucks?

You know what else sucks besides grief and loneliness? Depression, that's what. Depression sucks mightily. I feel so much at the mercy of my body, or my mind, or whatever combination it is that creates my depression. Sometimes the smallest things bring me down.

I got another cat last night. That was fast, huh? Well, I answered an ad on the Freecycle group here, and it just came together right away. Her health was questionable -- she was a stray, she was skinny, and she had obviously had a litter of kittens very recently -- but she grabbed my heart, and I decided to take a chance on her. I took her to the vet today, prepared for some pretty bad news, but it turns out she's fine. All her blood tests came back negative. She's had a worming treatment and her first shots, and I got her microchipped, and she's scheduled to be spayed in a little over three weeks, as soon as her mammaries return to normal.

That's all great news, yes? I should be happy, yes? But I'm not, because in my depression, what I keep focusing on is that my other animals aren't reacting well to the new cat. Well, duh, that's what always happens. Some distant part of my rational mind knows that. It also knows that I know how to work with the animals to overcome this, and it's just a matter of time and patience. But the depressive part of my mind overrides that, and here I sit, feeling miserable.

The depression seems to leak out all over everything else, too. I keep feeling that my animals are depressed too, and they're moping around waiting for me to pull them out of it.

Fuck my MTV, I want my TV. I want my security blanket, my 24-hour, 50-channel drug. I want to deaden the sadness and loneliness and depression. I want to not think and feel so much. Remember that Pink Floyd line? "I have become / comfortably numb." I want to go back into my comfortable numbness.

I won't, at least not tonight. But I want to.

If it were earlier in the day I'd make some coffee to give me a boost. But it's late, so instead I'm going to take my dog out for a good long walk, and then have a session on the Gazelle. I'm not scheduled for that 'til tomorrow -- I'm building up my time on it slowly -- but maybe the workout will help lift me up too.

Fun blog, huh?

The blahs

I haven't felt like blogging since my kitten was killed. Almost five days now since it happened, and the raw edge is off my grief. But those first three days were pretty bad, and I still miss her a lot. The worst moments have been remembering the last time I saw her alive, sitting outside by my car ... and realizing that if I'd only brought her inside right then, she'd probably still be alive.

My dogs seem to have forgotten about the kitten already, but my other cat hasn't. He still looks for her, inside and outside, and meows loudly when he can't find her. I know he needs a new companion, so -- surprised at myself that I could even face this so soon after losing my other kitten -- I'm starting to answer ads on Freecycle and craigslist for kittens that need homes.

I've had a few moments these past five days when I badly wanted the pseudo-company of the TV, but mercifully, they all passed quickly. My abstinence seems remarkably resilient so far; 3-1/2 weeks now, and two big emotional crises, and I haven't turned the damn thing on again yet.

But ... I know I'm just in that first eye of the storm that I've been through with all of my addictions. I've fought the initial battle, the withdrawal. I'm relieved to be free of all the bad things that watching TV was doing to me, and happy with myself for getting through the 3-1/2 weeks. I'm in a calmer place, and it's good. But I haven't begun my real recovery yet, and if I don't get on with it, the storm will come right back on top of me. (It probably will anyway, eventually ... but the farther I'm into my recovery, the better I'll weather that.)

So, stay tuned. Recovery marcheth on.

Thank God for my recovery

Last night my kitten was hit by a car and killed. She was 4 or 5 months old, and I had only had her for a month ... but how long does it take to fall in love with a cat? She was one of the sweetest, most affectionate kittens I've ever met.

I miss her terribly, and I feel lonelier than ever. Grief sucks. Loneliness sucks. This is why people turn to the bottle or the needle, or go on spending sprees, or lose themselves in sex, or zone out in front of the TV. Our culture is afraid of painful emotions -- frustration, fear, anger, loneliness, hopelessness, despair, grief. It doesn't know how to handle them in a healthy way, so its response is, Get over it and cheer up! And to help us do that, it offers us a huge array of drugs to dull our pain -- for cheap -- and encourages us to use them.

I was lucky, last night, to have two friends who came over to be with me as soon as I called them about my cat. They didn't try to minimize my grief or talk me out of it. They sat with me while I cried and stroked my cat, and then when I was ready to be alone with her, to say goodbye and bury her, they left. Friends like that are rare and precious, and I'm going to make sure they know it.

I am also fortunate to have years of emotional work behind me, that have taught me that the only way through grief is through it, not around it or over it. Pushing grief down or medicating it doesn't make it go away ... it only pushes it down deep so it can fester and grow. The way to get through my grief is to feel it, all of it, as it comes to me, badly timed and painful and messy as it is.

Thank you, God, for all of that. Thank you for giving me the courage to face my addictions and recover from them. Thank you for guiding me down a path of healing old hurts, dealing with new ones as they come up, and through all of that, becoming a better instrument for spreading your love in the world.

The next few days are going to be hard. There are reminders of my kitten everywhere I turn -- things I bought for her, things she played with, favorite places where she slept and played -- and in my daily routine. My dog and my other cat know something is wrong too. They're anxious, looking around for the kitten, and acting out of character in various ways, so I have to help soothe their anxieties.

I'm going out with my two friends this afternoon, tagging along on their errands, and that'll be good -- both getting out of my house and being with people. And tonight, if I can gather my energy, I'll go to the weekly meeting of a Spanish conversation group I recently found. Be with people, eat good Mexican food, and try to take my Spanish up another notch. Sounds like good therapy.

Another load off

A week ago I wrote that I was eating less since turning off the TV. I thought my clothes were feeling looser, so I decided to start tracking my weight. Well, last week I was at 275. Today -- with the same clothes, pocket contents, etc. -- I weighed in at 270. I'm kind of stunned. If that's accurate, then not only is it the most weight I've ever lost in one week, but I did it without even trying.

One week and two measurements makes it a little premature to get too excited, but ... damn! Wow! Cool! YA HA HA HA HA!

Free is good

I received a great blessing yesterday: a Gazelle Freestyle exercise machine. (You know, the one you've seen on TV. ) I've never been very physically active, and even less so since the chronic fatigue kicked in. I know I need to exercise -- in addition to being overweight, my stamina is poor, and my blood pressure is at the lower end of the at-risk range. But between my sedentary nature, my chronic fatigue, and my aversion to the awful heat and humidity here, it just doesn't happen much. So having this at home, where I can use it at my convenience and in air conditioning, is wonderful.

What's more, I got this Gazelle free. And that lets me segue into an off-topic plug for what I think is one of the Internet's killer apps: freecycling. The Freecycle Network is sort of an Internet-based sale, yard sale, and thrift store combined, but without the cost. It uses Yahoo bulletin boards to do what the Internet does best -- connect people to each other directly. Each freecycle group is local, serving one city, county, or region. To get things, you look at the list of items offered and ask for the ones you want. (Or post a request yourself, for things you want.) If the donor chooses you, you pick it up. To get rid of things, you post offers, choose someone from the replies you get, and the recipient comes to you to pick up.

Freecycle gives everyone exactly what they want. No wasted shopping trips. No hauling things to the thrift store or the dumpster. No money changes hands. No one is a "charity case." No catch. The result: less work, less driving, less gas burned, and less trash going into our landfills. Donors are happy to be rid of clutter, and recipients are happy with their new things. Everyone wins!

The Gazelle is the most expensive freecycle item I've received so far, but there's a surprising amount of valuable merchandise given away through the groups: working appliances, computers, furniture, musical instruments, clothes, building materials, books ... everything you'd find at a thrift store, plus many items thrift stores don't handle. I've contributed my share of items, and it's wonderful to have people come to me to take away things I don't want anymore.

Check it out. There are almost 3,000 freecycle groups with about 1.5 million members, so the chances are good that there's already a group near you. And if there's not ... you can start one.

Random things

Events and thoughts from the day, related only in that they're about TV. (I guess my "Oy" post kicked that off.)

I deleted two website icons from my Firefox toolbar today: the one for local TV listings, and the one for the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). I used to keep both sites open at all times, the former to see what programs were coming up, and the latter to look up TV shows, movies, and actors (at the same time I was watching the TV, of course). I was quite the IMDb junkie. You know those character actors that you see and say, "Oh, what's her name, I've seen her before, she played that character on ... what was that show we saw last week?" Chances are I can tell you the actress's name and the names of both the show you saw last week and the one you just watched. And I've submitted hundreds of corrections to IMDb's lists of cast members and guest stars.

I still have those two sites in my Bookmarks menu, so I can get them if I want ... but they're no longer right in my face, on my fastest-access-possible toolbar. A small thing, I guess, but it feels like the first concrete step I've taken to back away from everything I've set up to give me instant access to the TV and all of its companion addictions.

While I was sitting in my living room this afternoon, I wondered what time it was and glanced at one of my VCRs, which displays the time when it's turned off. I couldn't read the time, but the panel was getting some sun glare, so I moved a bit to one side. Still couldn't read the time, so I walked right up to the VCR. And realized it wasn't showing the time; the power was off. I looked behind the table that the TV, VCRs, and DVD player are on, and saw that the master switch on the power strip was turned off. One of my cats must have stepped on it. The whole setup has been sitting there, powered off, and it could have happened anytime in the past 15 days. I think that's a sign of progress.

Somehow today I got to remembering my experience, just after I finished college, of moving from my dorm into my first apartment. And I realized that my TV abstinence feels much the same as what I felt then. What I hadn't expected in that transition was the shock of abruptly being so isolated. When I lived in the dorm, finding company wasn't an issue -- all I had to do was walk out my door. There would be people playing cards, ping pong, four square, or frisbee, watching TV in the lounge, playing music, or sitting and reading. At nearly any hour of the day or night, someone who I knew would be awake, studying, or doing laundry if nothing else. The farthest I ever had to go to find a friend was the 10-minute walk to the computer lab, where someone was guaranteed to be pulling an all-nighter. It was wonderful.

Then, six weeks after graduation, I was working at my first post-college job, living in my own apartment -- alone -- and my college friends had all scattered to the winds and moved on with their own lives. I loved my work and my independence, but for the first time in my life, I had no family or friends within shouting distance. It was an awful shock. For the first time, I had to make the effort to find places to go, meet new people, make new friends, and keep up with them. It took me about two years to fully get used to this new reality.

My new TV abstinence feels very much like those post-college days. TV isn't company, but it felt like company. It's been my major substitute for company for years. And now I don't have it anymore ... by choice, yes, but knowing that only helps a little. My new social vacuum is much like my earlier one: I'm lonely, I want to find new friends, and it's going to take me some time to figure out how to do that.

Oy

Old habits die hard. Just now I woke up, got out of bed, sat down at the computer, and ... started to reach for the TV remote. LOL

Where to now, St. Peter?

Tonight marks the end of two weeks of abstinence from my TV addiction. Maybe I should feel happy and celebratory about that, but ... I seem to be at a plateau with my addiction, and I want to be farther along, and I'm frustrated and depressed.

What I've done so far is very, very good. My abstinence feels stable. I still have the occasional urge to turn on the TV, mostly when I'm low and lonely, but overall I don't think about it much. I have huge chunks of time back for other things. And I no longer have the flood of stories, characters, images, and advertisements -- all crafted towards the goal of selling, selling, selling -- gushing through my head. I'm not being programmed anymore. That's all great!

But somehow I was expecting more. I'm abstinent, but I'm not free or serene. The initial burst of energy that I got right after I turned the TV off has settled down. My energy is still better overall than it was before the turnoff, but instead of staying high, it's once again following the familiar rhythms of my chronic fatigue. The line on the energy graph still rises and falls, but at a higher level overall. So that's good too, but ... I was hoping for more. And without the living presence of the TV, my living room has a ghost-town feel. The set itself remains, mute and blind, gazing at me with its 27-inch-diagonal eye. The ghosts of TV past are still there, and I haven't yet exorcised them. I've yet to turn the living room back into a room for living.

My head knew that turning off the TV, in itself, wouldn't be a magic bullet. But apparently my gut was expecting a magic bullet, and now here I am disappointed and depressed. Note to gut: expectations are premeditated resentments.

Turning off the TV may have been the easy part, 'cause now I have to start changing my life, and myself, to fill the hole where TV used to be. I have to take constructive steps to heal the things I was medicating with TV. I have to move beyond abstinence toward true sobriety and serenity.

So ... some thoughts about what I need to work on:

• Improve my social life. This is my biggest need, the one that my TV addiction seems mostly to be there to medicate. It's also the hardest one to address. I'm lonely and isolated; I'm able to get out of my home so seldom that it's hard to build any kind of regular social group. I think changing this will require some major life changes. I live in a suburban area that I don't like, and I'd rather live closer to the center of town where there are more people and I'm closer to the places I want to go, but I doubt that I could afford it. I'm going to start looking anyway. I don't like the city I'm in, either; I moved here to be close to my children, and I've committed to staying here until my youngest is done with college, which will be another three years. After that I plan to return to where I lived before, which I love, and whose climate is much better for my health and energy. I'm also thinking about shared living arrangements instead of living in my own place -- a housemate, or several housemates, or some kind of co-op.
  
• Achieve more of what I want to do in this life, and be more satisfied with what I can do. Also not a small matter. One of the attractions of TV for me -- especially dramas, which is most of what I watch -- is watching people do hard work, face tough situations, and achieve good things. That's what I want to be doing, and my greatly diminished abilities are at least as frustrating as my social isolation, if not more so.
  
• Make my living room less TV-centric. Maybe put the TV into a cabinet with a door that closes, or a fabric hanging at the top that drops down to cover the TV when not in use. Maybe exchange my rather large TV for a smaller one. Maybe move my hundreds of videotapes and DVDs (45 shelf-feet worth; I measured) somewhere else. Or put them in the cabinet with the TV so that the doors or hanging can conceal them too. Make the living room more inviting with better lighting and decorations that I like.
  
• Stronger steps, maybe. Pack up the tapes and DVDs and put them in storage. Get rid of some of them. Get rid of all of them. Get rid of one or both VCRs, or the DVD player, or all three. Have my cable company turn off the premium-level package -- an extra 40 channels -- that I discovered 18 months ago that I'm receiving but not paying for. Have them turn off the basic 13-channel package that I am paying for. Get rid of -- gulp -- the TV. Not ready to do any of those things yet, but ... they're possibilities.
  
• Invest more time in my spiritual life, which I've been neglecting the last few weeks. I consider this blog to be a big part of that. But I also need to get to more meetings, spend more time in prayer and meditation, and keep working my other recovery program.
  
• Last, but certainly not least, start working the 12 Steps as they apply to my TV addiction. As far as I know, there are no 12 Steps for TV addiction yet, but adapting the 12 Steps of AA is easy enough. And since no one else (that I know of) is working the 12 Steps to recover from TV addiction, I'll need help from people in my other 12-Step groups. That shouldn't be a big problem.
  

Well. That should be enough to keep me off the streets for awhile.

No comment

Is Everything Bad Really Good For Us?

[The book] Everything Bad is Good for You is a wholehearted endorsement of pop culture -- [Steven] Johnson argues that everything we've been told is mind-killing drivel (TV, video games, and the ever-addictive Internet) has actually increased our IQs and made us smarter.

God-language

Hi, I'm Chris S., and I'm a recovering TV addict.

Since I use a lot of religious language in this blog, I'd like to say a bit about what lies behind it. Everyone is sensitive about religious language; there's a range in which we're comfortable, and in the rest of the range, we're ... well, not comfortable. And I'd like my visitors to be as comfortable as possible. (Disclaimer: these are entirely my own opinions; they're not official statements from any 12-Step group.)

I've been recovering from my addictions in 12-Step groups for eight and a half years now, and the 12-Step way of spirituality has become very much my own. Alcoholics Anonymous, and nearly all other 12-Step groups that follow its model, use the term Higher Power (sometimes abbreviated HP) to describe the force that can guide them to sobriety from their addictions. "Higher Power" is a masterful term that leaves each addict free to discover what she or he believes Higher Power to be. In my 12-Step groups, I've met Christians of all flavors, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, agnostics, and atheists, as well as many people who have never shared with me what religion, if any, they had. Quite a few addicts believe that Higher Power is not supernatural at all, but rather their own best selves, some inner resource that they haven't yet learned to reach. Some addicts believe that Higher Power is the collective wisdom of the recovering addicts they meet.

The 12-Step way of spirituality is remarkably ecumenical. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that AA is "spiritual, not religious." That phrase is repeated regularly in every group I attend, and I believe it.

Virtually all 12-Step groups believe in prayer and consider it an essential part of recovery from addiction. However, as with the idea of Higher Power, each addict is free to understand and use prayer in whatever way works best for her. Most of the prayers used in 12-Step groups do address God, rather than Higher Power. The best known of these prayers is the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Most meetings open or close with the Serenity Prayer. No one is required to join in saying the Serenity Prayer or any other prayer, and at least in the groups I attend, I'm quite sure that no one would be thought less of if they chose to abstain. Yet in the many hundreds of meetings that I've been to, almost no one -- even the people I know to be atheists -- has done so. I can't recall more than 8 or 10 people who ever did.

I'm a student of religion and language, and I'm well aware of the potential coercive power of religious language, whether it's meant that way or not. I wouldn't have been able to stay in these meetings all these years if I felt that I or anyone else was being coerced.

All of that wasn't meant to be a sales pitch for 12-Step groups. OK, maybe just a little. But mostly I was trying to say that I'm highly sensitive to coercion of any kind, and I'm constantly careful to avoid coercing anyone's religious or spiritual beliefs. My interest is helping myself and other addicts dig deeper into ourselves and our beliefs, to test them, strengthen them, and as needed, change them.

So when I talk about Higher Power, or address a prayer to God, that is my language and my beliefs. You are welcome to translate what I say into your own spiritual language, or agree with me, or disagree with me, or ignore me. (You're welcome to do it in comments in this blog, too.) Take what you like, and leave the rest.

I'm Chris S., thanks for listening. And I'm open to feedback.

~sigh~

Another low-energy day, dammit. Woke up feeling pretty good, but my energy dipped almost immediately. No strong urges to turn on the TV, but I keep thinking about it. I don't like using coffee to give me a boost, but I'm going to.

I wonder how much good this blog is going to do anyone besides myself. My health is so erratic ... how would anyone else be able to get much out of my experiences? Oh well, as my recovery friends would remind me, that's not up to me, it's up to each person and her/his Higher Power. My job is to work my recovery program and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

So ... take what you like, and leave the rest.

If we didn't laugh, we'd all go insane

Oops, too late. :o)

I'm having a pretty low day -- doesn't seem to be any particular reason, some days are just like that -- and I badly want to turn on the TV. So I'm trying something different, and surfing the web for funnies to cheer me up. Here are my favorite finds.

---

If TV addicts anonymous exists, I should go ... but I'd probably miss something good on.

---

I went to a Procrastinators Anonymous meeting, but no one showed up.

---

Two men are drinking in a bar on the 40th floor of a skyscraper. They're both totally plastered. The first man points to a nearby window and says to the other, "Hey, I'll bet you a million bucks I can jump out that window, fly around the building, and land right back here next to you." The second man, knowing a sure bet when he hears one and with his common sense alcoholically erased, replies, "You're on!"

So the first man jumps out the window, flies around the building, comes back through the window and lands on feet next to the second man. "WOW!" screams the second man. "That was incredible! Do it again!"

So the first man once again jumps out the window, flies around the building, returns, and lands next to the second man, who exclaims, "That's absolutely amazing. Do it one more time!" The first man replies, "OK, but when I come back you have to do it too." The second man agrees, so the first man makes his third flight around the building and returns.

The second man steps up to the window, proclaiming, "This is so easy! He did it and so can I." Juiced and pumped, he takes a deep breath and leaps out the window. He plummets straight to the ground, where he smashes into the pavement and dies instantly.

The first man calmly walks back to the bar, sits on his stool, and orders another beer. As he pours the beer, the bartender sadly looks at the first man, shakes his head, and says, "You're a mean drunk, Superman."

---

You know you're an addict when your personal story won't fit on your brand new computer with an 80 gig hard drive.

---

Note: in 12-Step programs, a sponsor is a person who is farther ahead in the recovery process than a sponsee, and gives the sponsee guidance and feedback.

A man in a hot air balloon realizes that he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man below. He goes closer and yells out, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend that I would meet him a half and hour ago, but I don't know where I am!"

The man below says, "Yes, you are in a hot air balloon, hovering about thirty feet above the ground. You are at latitude 42 degrees north and longitude 58 degrees west."

"You must be a sponsor," said the man in the balloon.

"I am," replies the man on the ground, "How did you know?"

"Well," he says to the sponsor, "everything you have told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is that I am still lost."

"You must be a sponsee," the man on the ground stated.

"That's right, but how did you know?" asked the balloonist.

"Well," replies the sponsor, "you do not know where you are or where you are going. You have made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is, you have the same problem you had when we met except now it is somehow my fault."

---

A social drinker, a problem drinker, and a alcoholic are sitting at a bar. The bartender serves them the exact same drink, and each drink has a fly in it. How do you tell which is the alkie, the problem drinker, and the social drinker?

The social drinker pushes away the drink with the fly and asks the bartender for a Diet Coke. The problem drinker asks the bartender to give him another drink without the fly. The alcoholic is the one who has the fly by the nape of the neck, yelling, "Spit it out, damn you!"

---

And finally this story, which isn't exactly humorous, but I thought of it as I was writing. Appropriately, it's from a TV show, The West Wing. Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, tells this story to Josh Lyman, his deputy, by way of telling him that he won't be fired for a recent blunder. For me this is the essence of why addicts can help other addicts to recover when non-addicts often can't, and I've retold it many times. (Thanks to the West Wing Unofficial Continuity Guide for the exact transcription.)

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, "Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, "Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out."

Links #4 - More blogs

I started this blog partly because I didn't think anyone else was trying to kick a TV habit, or would even take the idea seriously. (Once in awhile I'd search Google for phrases like "TV addiction," but all I turned up were jokes about it and people who were reveling in it.) But along with chronicling my own recovery, I was hoping to somehow find others going through the same thing. Well, doing this blog seems to have sharpened my searching skills.

The good news is that I'm not alone after all. In addition to eDave's Break Free of TV, which I wrote about here, I've found blogs by three other people trying to kick TV. They all follow the writer's reasons for wanting to stop watching, their triumphs, their problems and struggles, and their insights.

The bad news is that none of the three blogs listed below has been updated in some time -- their last entries were (in the order listed below) five months, one month, and two and a half weeks ago -- so it's possible that all three have been abandoned. Even if they have, they're still very much worth reading.

Escape Your Television - Diary of an Addict, by Alan

As of 1 February -- which, alas, is his last entry to date -- Alan was up to almost two months without TV. Alan has had many visitors since he started blogging last December, and the wealth of comments they've left are as valuable as Alan's posts.

Apparently Alan has abandoned this blog. In a post on another blog, he speaks about it in the past tense: "I tried [stopping TV-watching] myself at the end of last year and kept a blog of my experience for a few months. Alas, I never quite made it to that TV-free nirvana but I'm down to about one or two hours per week from twenty-plus hours a week before the experiment and I feel a lot happier for it."

My Year Without Television, by Our Money Staff

This author (it's just one person, despite the name that sounds like a committee) started blogging on 19 May, and his last entry to date was on 3 June. His last two entries make it sound as if he's given up his attempt.

TV Withdrawal - A Real Time Case Study {2005}, by Jake

Jake started his TV withdrawal on 29 April, and takes us up to Day 49. His last entry to date, on 18 June, promises "More posts to follow shortly" ... I guess we'll see.

A weight off my body-mind

When I walked the dogs this morning, I noticed that my waistband feels looser and my belly feels emptier. I think I am losing weight. I just now weighed myself on my (seldom-used) bathroom scale, and it read 275. I don't have a point of comparison yet, but I'll start weighing myself every week or two.

I stayed up late last night, reading; all this fresh productivity is seductive. And I'm rediscovering the joy of studying -- not just reading, but reading deeply, critically, asking as I read whether I agree with what I'm reading, and why or why not, and taking notes to cement it all in my mind. The joy of thinking. I've missed this for so long. It's one of the things that seemed to drain out of me years ago as I went into the worst depths of my chronic fatigue and depression. I was in a graduate program, studying for a career in the helping professions. I thought I could continue with school even after I became unable to work anymore, but I couldn't. My degree program sits, two-thirds finished, with no progress on it for seven years now. I've spent a lot of energy in those seven years trying to make peace with the idea that I would likely never finish the degree or have the career I wanted. I've had glimmers before -- brief surges of hope, a few days or weeks at a time -- that that could change. But then I always fell back into the fog where I couldn't concentrate, couldn't study, couldn't retain anything I read.

But this feels different. I'm not going to get ahead of myself, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. (Mom says, repeat that at least 50 times a day. :o) But ... I really think it's different this time.

I also know that turning off the TV made this possible. Obviously that's not all that made it possible; I've been working for years to recover my health and build my inner life, and I and my shrinks finally seem to have found the right meds for me. But it seems that turning off the TV either gave me the opportunity to see that this is possible for me again, or else turning off the TV was the final component that actually made it possible by ending the vampire its daily quart of mental blood.

So ... maybe I can still get back to something resembling the plans I had before. Maybe I can finish my degree. Maybe I can work again, on some schedule adapted to my more limited capabilities. Maybe, maybe, maybe .......

Links #3

TV-B-Gone

Guy walks into a bar. There's TVs everywhere, all set to different channels. Nobody's watching, but they are all having to talk loud to be heard over the blather. Guy pulls out his TV-B-Gone. It's black plastic, size of a matchbox, attached to his keyring. Guy aims, presses the button, and within seconds, all the TVs are off. Guy gets a standing ovation.

Sound like a dream come true? For US$14.99 + S&H, it is.

The Man with "Television Addiction" Threatens to Sue Cable Company

Giving a bad name to TV addicts everywhere.

Another semi-lost day

Woke up way earlier than I wanted to today ... haven't been sleeping well for the past three nights. Had to sleep a couple of hours in the afternoon. But I did get some good things done. I bought a coolant recharging kit and managed to get my car's AC partway recharged. Still need to get the car to a mechanic to bring it fully up to par -- it's only at about 50% of its full cooling power -- but at least now it's tolerable to drive in the heat of the day. That's an enormous relief.

Just in time, too, 'cause I was able to meet my son, N., at our electronics-computer superstore to snap up their deal du Fourth of July: a 250GB hard drive for $60 after rebates. It's a great time to be a storage hound.

While we were shopping and talking, N. made some reference to a running gag from Seinfeld that I'd never seen; I never watched it regularly. So N. told me about it in long and hilarious detail, which was great; he's a helluva funny young man. But as he was talking, I thought about all the TV that he and I have watched together (a lot), and how much fun we'd had watching shows and then later using them in conversation. When I was living in a different city and most of our relationship was by telephone, that was especially important ... it gave us a solid bond across those miles.

What will happen with that now? I haven't told anyone about my TV abstinence yet. (I mean no one. This blog is it.) I'm not sure how to tell people without sounding like an alcoholic who's just been born again. I've read some comments on other websites, from people who've also sworn off TV to various degrees, about how others find the idea of watching no TV at all difficult or impossible to understand. And how isolated it makes them feel in conversation. Is that going to happen to me? Already, in the short time since I've turned off the TV, I'm running into references to TV shows, events, and ads that I've missed. TV is the popular entertainment, even more than movies. It's the source of popular culture. How long will it be before I become a cultural Rip Van Winkle?

Actually I'm not worried about my kids. N. enjoys TV but it's nowhere near his whole life, and we have lots of other shared interests. My daughter watches even less. Same with the rest of my family. But ... how often will I find myself in this situation with other people I like? Or would like to know better? Just how out of touch will I feel?

Yeah, OK, I know. Be here now. One day at a time. Dammit.

As I started to write this post, I realized that I'm no longer counting my days of abstinence. I know it's been about a week and a half. Let's see ... OK, right, as of tonight it's 10 days. Anyway, I guess that means I've passed some important point where I no longer need to count the days to help me hang on by my fingernails.

Sometime during the day I found myself wondering if I was depriving my dogs too by having the TV completely off. I got a good laugh at myself over that. But then I realized that -- and I'm pretty sure this is for real -- the dogs have been different in the past 10 days. They're not as active, not chasing each other as much or playing with their toys. Maybe they're stimulated by the TV too; they're very sociable dogs, and maybe the non-stop chatter energizes them with the illusion of having lots of people around. (Hmmm, maybe I'll have to ... play with them. :o)

Dog TV addicts. Wow.

It can't possibly be a sign of mental health for someone to think about TV this much. If I didn't know I was a TV addict before, I sure do now.

Lonely

Lonely again tonight. My energy and mood were lower today than usual for the past few weeks ... just one of the "normal" downswings of chronic fatigue. And I had a misunderstanding with someone today; it's still unresolved, but at worst it'll only cost me $30 and a trip to the store. But it upset me more than it usually would have. Guess that's why I was feeling so lonely.

So earlier tonight I found myself walking in circles in my living room, in front of the TV -- didn't actually reach for the remote, but I was thinking about turning it on, or maybe putting in a movie. Instead I picked up the phone and called a couple of people, and that helped a lot.

Time to put this day out of its misery.

More Withdrawal Observations

End of day eight. I'm still uncomfortable with this new life (though I wasn't much more comfortable with the old one), but I already know I don't want to go back. I feel more clean, more serene. Many fewer "voices in my head." ~grin~ I feel more alive, that I'm actually participating in life instead of weaving through it in a semi-trance.

I'm still astonished that I can be productive nearly all day long. (This is especially astonishing if you know -- which you didn't before, because I haven't written about it yet -- that I've had chronic depression most of my life, and chronic fatigue syndrome since my early twenties, and I haven't been able to work much in the past 11 years. The combination of the two has diminished my physical energy and my ability to think and concentrate, and dulled my emotions.) I knew, or at least some part of me knew, that all the TV watching was taking something out of me. But I had no idea it was this much.

I'm listening to music again ... I had pretty much stopped for a long time, because TV filled all the available aural space. How could I have done that? I love music so much ... how could I have gone so long without it? I'm listening to audio books. I'm listening to public radio; we've got a killer station here, with excellent news and music programming.

I'm going to bed earlier and sleeping longer. My energy during the day is more reliable, and I'm not sleeping mid-day as much as I'm used to.

I'm not paying careful attention to this, but I'm pretty sure I'm eating less. Noshing just seems to go along with TV, so now that I'm not watching ... I'm not munching nearly as much. Damn good thing, too, 'cause I need to lose 70-90 pounds. (It was a bad shock when I recently discovered that I'm one notch below the "morbidly obese" category.)

The days still feel uncomfortably long, now that they're not time-collapsed by the TV trance and broken up by the TV schedule. On the plus side that's great, because I'm able to devote solid chunks of time to things I want to do. But on the downside, waking up in the morning and knowing I have another long, solid day ahead of me feels exhausting. I miss having breaks in my day. I don't have the rhythms of TV anymore, and since I work at home, I don't have the rhythms of going to work, breaking for lunch, and coming home. And I live alone, so I don't even have the reference points of another person's comings and goings. I guess I need to start creating my own breaks, my own rhythms of the day.

And this one's done. Off to bed, and much earlier than I'm used to. :o)

Links #2

OK, I went way overboard with comments in my first links post. I'll keep my comments much shorter from now on. If I'm gonna write an essay, I'll do it in a separate post. :o)


Break Free of TV, a blog by eDave

Dave started his latest attempt to cut down on TV on 9 June, just over three weeks ago. He's working hard on it and has good insights to share. He's quite open about everything he's going through. Dave's done a lot of web surfing, and he gives good links in his posts. Gotta love his URL too: mindsewage.blogspot.com. One of Dave's mini-rants especially grabbed me:

Michele [Dave's wife] started going off about the teen kidnapping case in Aruba and telling me all the latest.... Don't get me wrong, I think it is tragic that this beautiful teen girl was kidnapped and possibly murdered.... But tell me something... What good will it do me to sit and watch the events unfold on the nightly news??? Does it change my life in any way? Does it bring the person back? Does it make the family's pain go away? NO! It does absolutely no good, and probably does a ton of harm, to sit and watch mindlessly as the media pounds hour after hour of negativity into my brain.

Right on!


a snippet from rzyna's Random Thoughts

No need to read the original, really, as there's just this one paragraph:

though, if I can whine about one more thing, my aunt has a TV addiction. Not that she watches, but that it simply has to be on. She comes home, turns it on. She won't watch, she won't pay attention, but it simply has to be on. (We'll ignore my computer addiction for the moment...). So she did the same in the hotel. I, on the other hand, only turn on the TV if I intend to watch it. If I'm not watching it, having it on just plain irritates me. So I had some issues over that. We'd come into the room, she'd turn it on. When she'd go to shower, I'd turn it off to have some peace and quiet. I'd go shower, she'd turn it back on. It was amusing.

Confession, by Kindra, from her blog elephants on parade

Honest and funny. The sneaking TV as a kid, the craving, the numbness you come to crave, the deals with yourself to watch "just a little more." Been there, sister. Been there, done that, bought the eight Special Collectors' Edition TV Guides each with different cover photos. Kindra's got a way with a metaphor; her "Angus heifer on Main Street" killed me.

Six days

Six days' abstinence behind me now. My TV-free life is starting to feel more normal and less deprived. When I get up in the morning, the TV isn't my first thought, and turning it on isn't my first priority. (I do, however, go straight to the computer. Oh well, one addiction at a time. :o) These six days have all felt long, much longer than I'm used to, and I'm still adjusting to that. Of course that's great in that I'm getting so much more done, but it's also unnerving; I'm so used to the time-collapsing trance effect of TV.

I seem to think about TV the most when I come home from meetings, shopping, or errands. My dogs and cats are great, but I want human companionship too, and that's what the TV (virtually) supplies.

This is just what abstinence and withdrawal are supposed to do: let out all the pain and unfulfilled needs that the addiction was medicating.

Great.

But thank you, God. It may not be what I want, but I know it's what I need.