Question

The love of my life sounded exasperated. "Does anybody live without vices?" she asked. I didn't know how to answer the question; it's a thorny one.

Eva, yesterday, celebrated her 100th smoke free day. She's quit smoking in the past--once for four years--but this is the first time she'd ever quit "cold turkey". (Aside: what a weird phrase that is. Nobody seems to agree on its etymology. I like the theory that the "cold turkey season", i.e. post-Thanksgiving/Christmas, signalled the end of excessive alcohol intake.)

Wikipedia states that a supposed advantage of the cold turkey method is that, "by not actively using supplemental methods, the person avoids thinking about the habit and its temptation, and avoids further feeding the chemical addiction." The last part of that sentence is correct; the first is utter hogwash. Eva still thinks about smoking. She's angry that she can't be a "social smoker", one of those people who smokes once in a blue moon. It won't happen. If she has so much as one puff, she'll be a pack a day smoker in no more than a week.

My love has an addictive personality. Cigarettes are far from the only thing she has given up in her life. Most of her addictions have been licit, some illicit, and all of them seemingly interchangeable. She'd quit one thing only to take up another. It's part of who she is: I suspect that, if it were possible to perform a total addictionectomy, Eva would lose a lot of her drive to succeed, a drive that fuels her waking existence.

Because one of the things you could say Eva is addicted to is good for her--and anyone else's--condition. She has an incurable thirst for knowledge. It has served her very well over her personal and professional life. It's an "addiction" worth keeping.

Before you say "ah, it's so simple, just turn the rest of her addictions to healthy ends!", consider exercise. Eva lasted considerably longer at her gym than many people. Her trainer told her the good feelings she got from exercising would eventually become self-sustaining: that she would exercise just to get those good feelings. A year later...oh, yes, she would get those nice feelings after lifting a cumulative twenty thousand pounds (and I get horrid feelings just looking at that figure), but as she put it, exercise is like hitting yourself on the head with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop." Those good feelings are so much easier to obtain. Say, by means of a puff. Or a sip. Or a toke. Or a pill. Or any number of other things.

I have my own issues, and Dad's episode last month has brought those into stark relief. I need to stop treating food as entertainment and start thinking of it as medicine. That's a difficult adjustment at the best of times--it is a cruel, cruel irony that absolutely everything you're supposed to eat tastes like sawdust.

My biggest bugaboo--like most, I'd say--is portion size. Did you know that a box of Kraft Dinner supposedly constitutes four servings? That you're expected to eat only eleven potato chips at once? I look at the "proper" size meals with incredulity: yeah, maybe I'll eat that and live, but that sound you hear is my stomach, gurgling as it sucks all the joy out of the room in search of more sustenance.

It carries over into my drinks. I don't drink alcohol...never really saw the point of it, to be honest. But coffee? Cola? I am a caffeine-o-holic, suffering from the world's number one unacknowledged addiction. Just two cups of joe in the morning, but I'm kidding myself: the cups are mugs. Each one holds three standard cups. I've limited my cola intake over the past couple of weeks, and I miss it. The alternatives just don't compare.

Eva's latest weaning: aspartame. (While healthier than sugar, it's not the best thing for a diabetic to consume.) The Diet Pepsi has thus gone out the window, leaving us with (ick) water. I'd suggest we'll be down to "bread and water" by the end of this year...but bread's a no-no on the low-carb diet that has, to date, been our most successful undertaking.

Successful, yes, but at the price of constant vigilance: let one scoop of mashed potatoes into your life and you'll flood your carburetor in short order. It's kind of like that single puff of a cigarette. I lost a good deal of weight and felt good doing it. As good as I felt tucking in to a plate of honest-to-goodness food? Not even close.

Does anybody live without vices? And if so, do they really live happily?