cravings

Can kudzu cut booze consumption for you?

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Opting to stop drinking is tough enough.

But, once you’re in the throes of withdrawal from the only comfort you’ve known, it’s far harder to stick with that decision. Everything sounds good in theory. Everything seems doable when you’re still under the anesthetizing spell. But once your physiological security quilt begins to slip from your brain like a blanket off a bed in the dead of winter, you’re soon wishing that sky pie was a pint or pinot instead. Why? Because the cravings are about as full bodied as your favorite wine. They’re vexing, voracious, and when they come on – they grow quickly within you and know no bounds.

But, according to some studies, one helpful approach might just be to fight fire with fire.

And, no, my loves – I don’t mean firewater. (Sorry ’bout it.)

Rather, I mean this extract from a plant as rapid growing and annoying as your own cravings.

Kudzu:


(Such a perfect “burning desire” metaphor for suffocating cravings no?.)

What is it exactly?

Well, as you can see from the pic, it’s this invasive vine that grows like crazy but can also mitigate a crazy array symptoms that people get. In fact, it’s been used as a powder and extract for ages safely in China – dating all the way back to 600 A.D.. And not only does it stave off alcohol cravings, but it also can abate hangover symptoms, help with heart problems, and make your blood flow better. But, when it comes to getting you “turnt” down, it’s effectiveness has proven itself in the lab. What some researchers did was test subjects straight outta their nine to five gigs. (Smart, because that was always when my hankerings for something brain-subduing were their worst, too.) And then they fed the folk either a kudzu supplement or a placebo pill – both’ve which were paired with a beer buffet. As many cold ones as they craved. But that craving, interestingly enough, was far less in the kudzu takers than the duped group. In fact, they drank about half as much as their placebo counterparts.

And, the thing about kudzu, is that while it won’t quit the drinking for you (there’s no magic tablet – au naturale or not yet that’ll safely do that), it will help you take your spirit swilling down a skoche or four (or twelve, if you’re anything like I was as a drinker) to where you’re functional. And that’s what’s interesting about it. Let’s say you’re not exactly wishing to quit altogether. Instead, you simply wanna moderate. If that’s your case, then kudzu could potentially offer that.

That’s the nice thing – it could go either way. On the one hand, that newfound awareness may make you realize how much you need to halt your malt habit or relinquish your tequila love affair for good. (And then take the right action to make that happen.) Some’ve us are Miley style alcoholics who “can’t stop; won’t stop”. (So we know better than to bother starting again.)


(The idea’s that the extract can impart just enough clear thinking after a bit of breathing space from your toxin o’ choice to aid in making that call.)

That said, not everyone identifies as an addict just ’cause they catch a little clarity and can identify they’ve got a problem. That’s the thing about addiction. It’s a self-diagnosed disease. I’ve met drinkers who were in a long term relache or a honeymoon down a southbound spiral with le sauce. But, after summoning some sort’ve psychological sensei to help ’em figure out why they were going full throttle on the bottle, they could fix that sub-surface mental distress, return to living their lives, and then also return to the occasional holiday champagne glass – because they just realized how much better balanced living can be. But, more importantly, they realize alcohol’s something they can handle sans swilling a handle solo by midday in the middle of the week. And, for those folk, the hope’s that kudzu could help you avoid exactly that – kinda like the gastric bypass of equivalent of over-imbibing.

Which is exactly what I encountered in the WebMD testimonial section.

Like this dude who could magically moderate after popping some’ve the stuff:

“From the third day of taking this, the results were amazing. It immediately lessened cravings to the point that I can ‘take it or leave it’ with drinking.”

Or this one – who used it as sobriety training wheels:

“Me and my buddy both heavy drinkers decided we wnated to stop and get more done with our lives… Easier said than done. We couldn’t stop! I researched tips for quitting and I hit a thread on Kudzu, so I went to Ebay and bought a couple of bottles. We both quit within a week, no needing the alcohol, just hard to break the habit of stopping at my normal drinking holes! Would definitely recommend this to anyone that wants to stop drinking but cannot.”

And, then there was this guy whose story was most interesting to me:

“I have been trying to give up drinking. Every day for a year I have been saying to myself tomorrow. I’ve had a day or two off in that time. But can’t go without more than a day. My grandmother sent these Kudzu capsules to help me with smoking. I’ve been on them for four days now. My smoking has reduced slightly. My friends say I chain smoke, but now have been having breaks between my cigarettes. HOWEVER AMAZINGLY, on the second day, for the first time, I was trying to down my drink quicker than usual to get tipsy, as for some reason I wasn’t really enjoying the drink. And after my first can I didn’t really feel like anymore. The next can sat in my hand for a while before I realised and drank it. The feeling that I got just wasn’t as satisfying as usual. Yesterday I woke up and went about my day. Usually the first thing that enters my mind is What time am I going to have a drink today. But for some reason it didn’t. I drove past my first bottle shop and thought, don’t feel like one yet. That happened all day until 7pm came. I was relaxed and thought, I don’t really feel like it tonight. Today no drink again and I’m not fazed. It’s late at night, I’m relaxed and my mind seems occupied and I really don’t want or have any urge what so ever. I suppose you have to want to stop. However I was trying it for smoking, and it’s stopped me drinking almost immediately. There’s no way ( I hope), that I will have a drink now. I haven’t had it this easy.”

See, that one’s fascinating because – not only did it hamper the drank hankerings, but it also diminished his cigarette desires. As someone who’s addicting to anything mind-altering, that leads me to wonder about the implications of kudzu’s effectiveness for other chemical dependencies. I mean, while all the research I’ve unearthed on the stuff seems to center on alcohol reduction, could it also kill other cravings too? If it worked inadvertently in a battle against tobacco, might it additionally nix pharmaceutical addictions? Or dependencies on other less legal drugs prescribed by drug dealers who don’t have white coats, stethoscopes, and letters after their names?

Considering it’s natural, proven, and safe – it wouldn’t hurt to find out, right?

Compared to some of the stuff most of us have “experimented” with?


*That said, as ever, def see a doc first to make sure none’ve these contraindications apply to you.

The 3 D’s to dispatch your cravings

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There’s a lot more to addiction recovery than fighting cravings.

A lot.

But between the meetings and meditations and whatever else is helping you stay clean ‘n serene (most days), we all know there are those days and nights (and times in the middle of an especially hellish day at work) when those cravings come on strong. Strong enough to cause a cognitive crash. Strong enough for non-logic to flood your noggin. Strong enough for all your other life priorities to disappear. And this is frustrating. Because when this happens to me – I have just enough awareness to know I cannot successfully use. But not enough to manage to resultant rage of abstaining. So, while I won’t give in, I’ll go take out my frustration on some other area of my life, causing a ripple effect of bad ramifications. Which is why, some people use a few simple tools of the self-psych hackery genre for rapid craving abating. For me, I’ve distilled it down to the “three D’s”:

Starting with making the craving less 3-D:

DULL IT OUT

What’s making the craving so intense right now? Likely the prospect that it seems real. You can almost taste it with your senses. In this mental exercise, we aim to do the opposite. What you do is imagine the thing you’re craving – starting in high def quality, vibrant color, and totally accessible. Then, gradually, you imagine it turning to black and white. Once in monochrome, you then can imagine its image has become static-y. Unclear. As its crispness disappears, you slowly envision it becoming further and further away. Less real. Inaccessible. No longer at the forefront of your mind. What this helps to do is release your attachment to the object – the concept of the craving – until it seems unreal to you and less relevant.

DISGUST YOURSELF BY IT

Similar to the “dulling” exercise, this self-disgust practice is another way to tweak your thinking about your fixation. The difference? Instead of merely making it boring, you’re making the thing seem downright revolting. I remember doing this once when I was first quitting fast food (long before I ever got healthy). Not sure how I came up with it except for the fact that sheer willpower alone wasn’t working, so I convinced myself that the smell alone was disgusting. And I was reminded of it the other day when I saw this Tony Robbins piece on pizza – and making this dude from the audience go from loving to loathing it. What Tony does, is put it on a -10 to +10 scale. You you go through the process of first explaining why it’s great to yourself. Why it’s a +10. (“The texture of the cheese, the taste of my favorite toppings, the fact that I don’t hafta share it with anyone ’cause I live alone…”) Then, after that, you start slowly start giving it disgust demerits. You bring the pizza down a peg or two, or twelve. (“Ew, this’s been sitting out for a while, I think I saw a fly land on it, the cheese looks kinda like Buffalo Bill’s skin suits…) til the mere thought of the stuff sounds about as appealing as cleaning the toilets of a Mexican restaurant with your tongue.

DEPUTIZE YOUR CRAVINGS


“‘xcuse me – can you put on the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show so I can remember why I’m doing this?”

Then, finally, after all this negative thinking, you can make your cravings positive.

Or rather, you can let your positive cravings stand in for your bad ones. What some of the pros propose, is that you set up your environment to reflect things you positively desire. For example, if it’s too dark to run outside on a trail (my fave healthy craving), then my next craving’s for laziness and gluttony. To sit inside, and eat instead. So, I have to coddle the cravings and give it a baby bottle of positivity to appease it. Since I hate the gym, I usually work out outside (a lot) and that’s how I stay fit. However, I know that if I want to keep up both my endurance, fitness identity, and general sense of well-being, I’ve gotta do my bi-daily cardio. And since I hate being on a machine (and just wanna hop off every second of the first ten minutes), I’ll do a craving trade. I set my iphone in front of me and put on a Youtube music video playlist of upbeat beats set to sexy, happy, active people living their lives and doing awesome stuff. It’s like a combo of fitspo and lifespo. A general reminder for what I crave long term – not the laziness craving tryn’a hijack my mind right now.

So there you have it:

Dull it down, disgust yourself with it, and deputize.

From smack to bad snacks, I hope these tips’ll help curb your burning urges.

Jonesin’ for mischief? Journal it.

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“I want it.”

The drug. To ravage the woman who doesn’t want me. To murder my husband in his sleep.

Obsessive fixations – from physical drug cravings to harm-doing – can vice us in the grip of one of its hands and torture us slowly with the other. It wasn’t until after I quit chemicals completely that I realized just how deep, dark, and viscous is the bog of compulsive cogitation. It’s one I drown in every day. And, like any other sufferer who no longer relies on scripts or Sauvignon to diminish the demons’ appeals to my intrinsic insanity, I’ve slowly sought out self-help stuff. Initially, when I was alone, meditation itself was helpful. Then, when I began to let others enter my life, my practice was challenged. I had to remember some super Buddhist principles, like: “This is just a thought. What my ex said. What my co-worker did. How I’d like to rip that rectal polyp who cut me off out of his car to choke him out with my left hand and punch him with my right until the light turns green again…”


(“Try to remember it’s somebody’s mother.
Try to remember it’s somebody’s mother….
(*click-click*)
Try to…”)

“ALL just… thoughts.”

When actually activated, this line of thinking can be of great aid.

If something – especially something you want to act on but shouldn’t – is just a thought, it’s not real. You’re not the thought. You don’t have to do it. You’ve not committed it. So it doesn’t define you. And neither do the ramifications of what’d happen if you did.

As a brilliant yes-and to that, today, I read something about these compulsive, cyclical mental laps that really “resonated” (as my more earthy friends’d say) with me. The first part is that – just because you’re acknowledging the just-a-thought-ness, doesn’t mean you’re denying its existence. In fact, it was compared to cutting off a hydra’s head and having a ton more pop up like in that groundhog game at Chuck E. Cheese. Another way I’ve heard’ve this is the “underwater beach ball” analogy: keep trying to submerge an inflated sphere with your body, and it’ll just pop up with seemingly renewed strength, shooting out of the water altogether. The point to the relentless metaphors? Yet another one: like them or not, these thought-beachballs are a part of you. Bury them, and they’ll just spend their time below, resentfully leaking toxins from their grave into your mental earth and the water supply that your other thoughts drink from. And then everything in your world gets distorted. You get angry. Confused. And, once your guard is down, voila. They pop up with supercharged vigor and pelt you rapidfire like a bad game of dodgeball.

Instead of that recurrent nightmare, these thoughts must be dealt with.

You grow the balls to grab those balls and use ’em as weapons.

Against your own demise.

It’s like that Hozier song: “Don’t ever tame your demons; keep ’em on a leash”.

Okay. So… how? How do I do that?

Well, the suggestion I read in this month’s Psychology Today actually touched on a version of a concept I’ve heard in drug recovery programs. It’s one I’ve written about before – called “Think that thought through.” The twist, however, with what PT offered is a little more of a home exercise program. It reaches to non substance addicts who just suffer habitual thoughts they wanna kick, too. You don’t have to have a sponsor. You don’t have to have a shrink. Both help tremendously – because someone else can help keep us honest. But, if you’re in a tight spot and help’s not available, you do this:

Grab a pen and paper – and write the entire scenario down from a fact based standpoint. How the whole thing would look from start to stop. From calling that dude who peddles pills from the house down the street… to the sweats and fiery flesh sensation of coming off’a Oxycontin. From texting your copulatory companion to come over and empty himself… to you feeling empty enough in the days after that you’re more likely to call said pill pusher. Or even the anecdote I read in that PT article – about a woman who really, really wanted to suffocate her slumbering husband. I tried not to laugh about the concept (still am as I write about it) of something seemingly so preposterous – until she detailed everything from watching him stop moving to seeing her mug in tomorrow’s news… and I realized, “Oh, crap. This is really real to her.”

Or – was – I should say.

After she realized something important:

But also acknowledged the thoughts’ existence.

Along with how they’d look IRL… Out loud and in ink.

Because something happens when we reach a place of acceptance. It comes full circle to that “It’s just a thought” thing mentioned before. It’s just a thought. It’s just a part of my mind. It’s not who I am. When something is just a concept or a dark fantasy, it’s only reality’s highlights – not everything. It’s appealing because we’re the Spielberg of this mind movie. Conveniently, we leave the uncomplimentary facets on the cutting room floor. Through thoroughgoing acknowledgment, we add back in the full story – however painful – and let ourselves marinate in the miserable details that are part of the package deal. What’s the full story? Of returning to an abusive partner? Picking up drugs again? Inflicting harm? Sure, your favorite hobby is pleasing the man you love – but his is hitting you with frying pans. Yes, some tranquilizers’d be nice – but every time you pick up a drug, ten years disappears. Of course your wife would be more attractive with her loud mouth stitched shut – but unfortunately there’s a few laws against acting that out too.

Writing it with an actual pen and paper, they say, is crucial because the hand-to-brain action makes it more personal and concrete via the tactility – versus typing. Also, the effort and time it takes affords you the opportunity to indelibly burn the concepts into your brain. Do you remember all the little comments you spew onto social media each day? Every “lol” or heart emoji? No. It’s noncommittal. You could change your mind and unlike that post about talking tube fish tomorrow. Likewise, I have to re-read my stuff on here half the time (out loud) to make sure I mean it. Similarly, with this journaling hack, the idea is to outline facts that matter, get certain about what it is you want, and have the reminder in ink – staring you down tomorrow, versus furtively tucked into an app on your phone. If it’s easier to ignore what you’re ashamed of, you will. But once this has been tried, our darkest desires are far easier to override.

In the meantime? Learn to laugh at your thoughts – not feel guilty – as they arise.

’cause, fortunately, you can’t truly do harm from thoughts alone.

Only to others, if you act on ’em. And only to yourself, if you latch onto ’em.

6 things to do in lieu of picking up…

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When the compulsion clouds roll in, everything else fades away.

Before you know it, you’re in the eye of its tornado. Even if you’re not using (yet), the whirling, howling walls are all around you – blocking out logic and everything you’ve been working toward. Your goals. Your loved ones. All the good stuff that’s come with getting clean and exorcising that monstrous thing you let take up residency in your essence for however long you opted to press pause on life, not realizing it was actually a fast forward button into hell. So what do we do when this happens? Sure you could give in and become one with the funnel’s edges, but one good implied piece of advice I once heard about “thinking that thought through” might show you how that doesn’t work out well for anyone in recovery. But sometimes even thinking of our “future self” isn’t enough. We need clear direction right now. What can I do? What else can I do to avoid these attack thoughts? So, mayhaps we can review some alternatives in lieu of picking up. And where can we start?

By picking up… the phone:

1. Call a friend who “gets it”.


“No worries, honey… we all are here. Wanna know what I did last time I was in your sitch…?”

This would be where the whole “go to meetings and connect with people” comes in handy. It’s tough to put yourself out there, but that in itself – meeting and interacting with new people about something personal – is a thoroughgoing first step itself in rattling the core of those cravings. But why a stranger? Well, they won’t be strangers if you keep showing up and striking up experience, strength, and hope convos with ‘em. And why not your “I’ve never touched pot in my life – except that time I was drugged with hash brownies” mom? Well, sometimes that’s good as a short term solution. (Like if you’ve not yet met like minded people who can empathize.) But not necessarily for a long term go-to. ‘cause if she’s half as insightful as mine is, even she will admit that when SHTF, she can’t truly help because she’s never been there. She knows it’s awful, but doesn’t know on a personal level enough to offer the kinda advice those who have can. And if she’s half as awesome as mine, she’ll tell you she’s happy to listen – but ask you to call up one of your friends from whatever program you’ve chosen to help you out. Because maybe, just maybe, they’ve been in this exact scenario before and can throw you the same rope they used to exit it.

Got neither a fam or fellowship?

Dial the hotline – or try a chatroom (yes, they have those!)

2. Just do nada.

It’s like Nike – but with a finger to the lips “Shoosh” instead of “Swoosh”.

There are a ton of different types of meditation. But when you’re really going through the crankiness a hankering brings, sometimes the best thing to do is the simplest form there is: cease activity, shut your eyes, and focus only on your breath. It’s almost like the anxiety in your body gets self-conscious about you pointing it out with your awareness and then tries to subsequently jump ship.

But unlike Phoebe here, it does so sorta serenely – allowing your respiration and heart rate to normalize anew.

3. Music and cardio

This is gonna sound a bit out there, but I’m tossing it in the mix anyway because it worked for me. During my first three hours of being off opiates and valium, I was in a furious sweat and muttering to myself like Rainman. I didn’t like the idea that I was making noises to no one and sweating for no reason. And since I couldn’t find a way to stop doing these things, I decided to find a function to all the noise making and sweating. Now, had I not titled this point, you might be thinking the obvious right about now. But the thing about withdrawal is that sex seems like the opposite of a good idea (for me at least, it did).


More like, “Try to put anything in me and I’ll reciprocate – with this knife!”

(That said, if it works for you – I’m all for it.
In fact, we’ll add it here as option #3 article A.)

So, instead, I hopped on the elliptical, blared Deftones into my ears, and emitted sounds (not unlike a feline being defiled with with a barbed phallus) along with Chino for a long time while sweating out the bad juju (is that how you spell it?). When a few hours had passed, I was disgustingly dirty – but still clean. I was also a bit proud. So was the kindly British comedian who’d selflessly helped me get here even though he has a revolution to worry about.

4. Art (making it or enjoying it) of any kind

Draw. Read. Sit down at the dusty piano. Sing out loud.

Sculpt a mashed-terpiece like Richard Dreyfus did in that one movie with the aliens.

Write. In fact, leave me an eloquent comment about how terrible my advice is.

5. Make some tea

When I was first getting clean, I treated the Yogi tea aisle of Wegman’s like my own personal, self prescribed herbal pharmacy. From Kava to Soothing Caramel Bedtime Tea, it was an ideal shoe-in for the thing I was still missing. Maybe it didn’t do much. But just knowing I had some sort of substitute that didn’t include relapse made me feel like I was satisfying that craving on some level.


See? If it’s a genius’s solution, then it must be right. #SitcomWisdom.

Which takes us to the last one:

6. Mindless, entertaining distractions

Watch something dumb and funny – Normally I wouldn’t champion indulging the free ignorance that is your T.V. set. But we’re not talking about a long term cure for addiction. We’re addressing those inevitable, occasional “I need a substance to suffocate this stress immediately” moments. The thing about laughing is that it – much like your former drugs or even stimuli that remind you of them (from mere thoughts to paraphernalia) – it also produces dopamine. The thing about dopamine is that it focuses your attention on whatever’s causing it. Not a bad deal when it comes organically – ’cause even if that’s paired with a drool inducing 20 minute bout of one liners, it’s still better than picking up. And while it won’t quench the intrinsic demon’s demands forever – it definitely clicks down his volume knob enough right now for your reality based side to maybe be heard once again.

Whether or not you choose to listen to it is up to you.

Best of luck, friend.

Think that thought through… the wormhole

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Months after I stopped missing pills and pinot noir, my other addictions had remained.

In fact, they’d kind of transmogrified into this plethora of other strange outlets: my Sephora makeup compulsion increased. My Netflix binges. The bulimia obsession. I’d binge, I’d purge, I’d feel awful, and then I’d comfort myself by repeating the process. Finally, I told my sponsor about it one day when I really wanted to commit oral homicide on everything living in my fridge and then fountain it from my face in a stream of bilious glory. (Are you turned on yet?) It was if I’d completely forgotten what the glistening prize after the culmination of the vomit marathon truly was. I needed to speak with someone like me. Stat.

Her advice?

I’m totally kidding (but that was the advice my own brain was starting to give me).

No, her advice was… nothing. That’s what I love about a good sponsor. They don’t tell you what to do. They infer suggestions via personal experience anecdotes and Socratic inquiries. What she asked – not told – was “And how’s that look afterward?” I tried to comply and envisage this scenario she was suggesting. After you’ve binged and barfed and are laying in a pool of acidic drool and streaming mascara, I won’t lie: there’s the initial satisfaction. There is indeed an element to bulimia that deals with the vagus nerve (whether it’s stimulated by the binge-purge cycle, I dunno). But like anytime you hack your well-being centers by doing something unhealthy, you’d better be ready for a big comedown. So, she asked me to tap into that feeling. The thoroughgoing hopelessness you feel once the high is gone. How the loneliness resumes. The shame.

And, for once, something about this clicked in me.

I’d been gifted this view of my future self – bathed in a more realistic light. I remember reading this article once in Psychology Today about how we tend to have these idealized views of how much better our “future selves” are gonna be. You know? When we say “I’ll start my diet and yoga practice tomorrow” or “I’ll do my chores when I get home” or “I’ll buy a new car in a year”. It’s as if future-you is going to magically be more willing, better at financial planning, or all around less of a dumb whore than the one who’s raining bills on the organic section of Wegman’s like the bins of dried tart cherries are actually tarty strippers on a pole. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. And that day, with my sponsor on the line, I finally got a glimpse of an aha moment about that. Fast-forwarding into the mental time capsule she’d just provided me, I had an epiphany. The insanity-belief I was subscribing to (like most obsessed folk) was the old hopeful-about-something-that’s-never-happened-any-other-time-I’ve-done-this one. My logic? “Why, I’ll shove this in my face, barf it up, and then Tanning Chatum will come in with a mop to clean it in his banana hammock while complimenting me on my girlish figure. Obviously.”

But f’real me at the end of that ritual was miserable. I could feel my teeth starting to hurt. I already was starting to want to do that thing where you free up the blade from your Venus appliance and start scrawling out sanguine dermal etchings into your arm during bath time. And I hadn’t even bought my binge fodder yet, much less eaten it. This was just based on some hybrid abstract lovechild born of introspection, creative fortunetelling, and a phone call I almost didn’t make.

But for those not born with my Stephen King lite imagination, there was one bit from that Psych Today article I mentioned that might help you access that future-self without having to generate all these imaginative brush strokes about how you’ll feel tomorrow. What is does, is ask you to think of your future self as a totally separate entity holding now-you accountable:

A good way to think about how to do this, then, is to imagine our future selves as separate people whose interests and desires matter to us, perhaps as members of our immediate family. This might make it easier for our now-self, when he’s confronted with a choice, to summon up concern for any number of his future selves. (For many of us, it’s easier to feel concern for others than for ourselves.)

If I’m being honest, I take this take on the approach with a grain of salt. While I do believe it works, I don’t necessarily agree that it does so because it’s easier to feel concern for others more than ourselves. Let’s be real here. What I believe is that we educe a motivational fear to do the right thing when we remember that others are going to be holding us accountable at some point. We’re afraid of disappointing them. They may not like us anymore. And if we can remember that both our future self might despise us along with the people we’ve let down because future-self looks bad, it makes the present-moment bad habit suddenly less alluring. So, let’s go from there. Where do you have to be and who do you have to answer to later? Will the other people in your life be disappointed if the bad decision you make now has a domino effect of pissing them off? If future you is sitting there with naught but your shvantz in your palm and an empty apology dribbling from your jaws? (Note, however, that this separate-you-in-the-future concept only works if you comply with good present-moment decision making. You can’t just lambast past-you later and get a pass: “Ah, yeah, boss; blame yesterday-me. What a vapid trollop. Let’s fire her from this company, keep me, give me a promotion, and… a company card. Oh, we don’t have a company card? Alright. I’ll settle for the promotion. Good talk.”)

So, this is where I was in the midst of my chat with my sponsor.

Remembering now how future me would feel even more agoraphobic than usual. Remembering how future me would feel even more insecure, and compulsively apply cosmetics – slathering on glue and faux eyelashes just to walk the damned dog. And the interesting thing – especially since this comes on the heels of an article about “being present” – is how even though this practice seems paradoxical when coupled with the advice regarding remaining in the moment, it really isn’t. When you’re accessing a realistic future because it will help you resolve a present conundrum, you’re not ruminating about some un-solvable problem or regret. You’re just accessing another facet of yourself. One from a place that hasn’t happened yet. In fact, you could almost see it as there being two you’s down the road. One’s miserable and has premature wrinkles. The other’s got a line to toss you to help you outta this mess. The one happening right now. After chasing after the emotionally crippled recluse-me for long enough, I managed to find the one with the line – after getting my sponsor on the line.

And I think that’s the full-bodied answer to doing this successfully:

Split yourself into quantum entities to hold yourself accountable.

And find actual others to hold all two (or three) of you accountable too.