Detox

I've recently gotten into watching reruns of the medical show "House, M.D."  Quite an interesting show.  The main character, Dr. Gregory House, is an absolutely brilliant doctor, but has absolutely no cander or social tact of any kind.  He's a crass, blunt, & insultive individual.  The other important thing to know is that he's handicapped.  He had an aneurysm in his leg years ago, which killed a lot of nerve tissue.  He walks around with a cane and a severe limp, which he's quite bitter about.  And his leg still hurts because of it.  You'll see him pop a few pain pills at least once in nearly every episode.

At any rate, on the episode that played last week, "Detox", the hospital administrator gave House enough incentive to go without pain pills for a week.  Throughout the episode, his withdrawl symptoms increased terribly, leaving him distracted, breathing heavily, and with big, red bags under his eyes (all while trying to solve another difficult case before the patient dies).

House made it a week without his pills, but went right back to using them afterwards.  While talking with his friend, Dr. Wilson, he admitted to being an addict, but said it wasn't a problem.  The conversation heated up as Wilson insisted that House had changed since the aneurysm, and finally House slammed his cane down onto the table, shouting "Of course I've changed!"  After a few moments of silent tension, Wilson carefully asked "...And everything’s the leg?  Nothing’s the pills?  They haven’t done a thing to you?"  House gave Wilson a steely, unwavering look, and said "They let me do my job.  And they take away my pain."

I like to think that most people aren't addicted to any drugs or actual substances.  But sometimes lifestyles, habits, behaviors, actions, or even simple mind-sets can be things that we depend on far too much.  These things can be good, neutral, or bad, but even the good ones can be unhealthy if we're using them too much, at the wrong times, or in the wrong ways.  We cling to these things as coping strategies, or even as crutches, to deal with the problems and pain in our lives.  To one extent or another, I think most of us are psychological/emotional addicts.

Addiction is no way to live, but Detox is the hardest part.  We try to go without our familiar, comfortable, chaining coping strategies.  But the withdrawl symptoms set in, and we find ourselves facing the pain we've avoided, terrified of not knowing when we'll make it through.  And even worse, sometimes we don't know how to make it through.  We need a Plan B.  Without some alternate plan, some better, healthier coping strategy, we ultimately give up, and turn back to our addictive coping strategies.

I think we all know at heart that our shallow, selfish, fear-based coping strategies are bad for us.  But they let us do our job.  And they take away our pain.  The trick is to find Plan B...because the torturous cycle of starting & quitting Detox continues forever without it...

"It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality.  There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts."