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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.

Jogging withdrawal’s my Achilles’ heel.

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If you’re a jogging junkie like I am…

…you might wake up some days feeling like that scene from Hostel:

Ah, the cantankerous calcaneus tendon.

It wasn’t until I started working again in the P.T. field that I realized how bad I’ve let it get. Or how deep in denial I’ve been about it. Why? Because I’m a running fiend. And, like most forms of fiendery, when you’re in love with your drug of choice – entertaining the thought that its excess might be causing a given issue just isn’t an option. You row right on through the Egyptian De-Nial river, and straight to a sanity bereft sarcophagus – running all the way there, of course, if you’re anything like this chick. Because why wouldn’t you turn to your drug of choice for comfort when something as upsetting as the fact that you’ve an inability to moderate that drug of choice has come to light? Why wouldn’t you be the one horror flick style dicing your own heel cord for another dose of feel good?

Yes. My proverbial Achilles’ heel is the dreaded rest day from running.

And that might be alright if I were moderating better. I used to run an hour or more, once, every day. Then I split that into two half hour jogs. Then I started fitting in a third workout at the gym. Then I started increasing my morning run’s time. Calories and weight loss concerns are a thing of the past. I’m officially in it, every time, for that full body ubermensch feeling high that permeates your essence and makes you wonder where your cape is by the time you cross that sweaty finish line. While in a state of sprint, I’m Spiderman. Within moments back in my parked car, I’m Peter Parker sans the wrist silk. And I check that wrist for my watch, ignoring the ache in my ankles.

“How soon can I go again?”

Recently, I read about a fellow addict – a famous person – who’d gone through nearly the same.

Eminem (You might know of him. From rap. And being Caucasian.) went to rehab circa 2007. Emerging on the verge of obese albeit clean, he took to the gym and rat-wheeled himself straight into hip flexor hell (surprising we’ve never met, since I own a summer home there). Granted, he ran a bit more than I did (17 miles a day), did so on the treadmill (versus trail like I do), and probably listened to gangster rap (while I reveled in being a hilly tierra trotting hippie) – but our stories are still the same: that endorphin seeking addict within each of us leads us to our own detriment if we indulge it. And since it’s not in a shot glass or getting shot up it seemed fair game. Right? (Wait… can you rail a jogging trail?)

That’s all rhetorical, judging by where it’s landed us each. But what’s the fix?

If the only fix were to quit running – even for a while – it’d be inconceivable. I’d be right back in my Egyptian reality refusal pontoon, sailing off into my own body demise. But, I suppose – what I could ask myself is – could I at least drop down to two runs instead of three? Could I decrease the time I’m doing? Part of why I’m not willing to rest is because my body gets stiff when I’m non-aerobic for too long. So, could I at least try – in between my shorter runs – to find other forms of exercise I don’t hate?

That’s what Marshal did.

Much like I have, he saw that his new means of staying Slim was Shadies of his past habits of the chemical variety.

Just… healthier:

“It’s easy to understand how people replace addiction with exercise. One addiction for another but one that’s good for them. I got an addict’s brain, and when it came to running, I think I got a little carried away. I became a fucking hamster.”

And, also much like myself, that self-awareness moment wasn’t enough to hamper his hamstery tendencies.

It actually wasn’t till his body began rebelling that he gave it another thought:

“I ran to the point where I started to get injured. All the constant pounding from the running began to tear up my hip flexors.”

And what’d he do?

“So when I was starting to dial back on the treadmill, I tried out some of those workout DVDs you do at home. One of the first ones was Shaun T’s Insanity workout. I know a lot of these DVD guys are wacky, but I’m alone in my gym; I need someone on the TV yelling to motivate me. Besides, some of this shit is entertaining. When I first started the Insanity workout, I alternated my routine, running one day and doing the Insanity the other. Then I stopped running altogether because it was too much to do them both. The Insanity won. After a while I started plateauing on that, so I mixed it up. I did the P90X for a little while (and I still do that ab workout because it’s the most challenging), but then I moved on to the Beast.”

Now, this is normally where lazy me would say “But I like being in nature – not listening to some person’s recorded image yell through a screen while I’m stuck between four walls and glancing wistfully outside like a third grader wishing she could go out and play instead of learning fractions”. And, who knows, maybe you are too. That’s where we put on our creativity beanies and brainstorm up a custom fit plan. For me, I know I’m not giving up trail jogging – I’m just going try and taper down the amount. But when I do, I don’t wanna go through withdrawal from outdoorsy aerobics, so I could I supplement that?

And… how?

(Read on here for part 2)

Jogging withdrawal’s my Achilles’ heel (part 2)

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On a recent post, I shared my (and Eminem’s mutual) addiction to running.

And how our bodies (his hip flexor; my Achilles) both have suffered as a result.

(Hashtag: comparing myself to famous people helps me feel relevant.)

And… to be honest… I wasn’t sure whether to post this here or on a fitness related site I write for. But, seeing as exercise addiction has become a serious-but-not-prescription-habit-level-serious reality for me, I opted to at least address it here. Why? Because if I don’t broadcast it out loud, then I’ll carry on with that whole “denial is just a stream near the Sphinx” thing which does dos cosas: A.) me a disservice and B.) deprives you of the opportunity to say “Holy soleus, Batman: I’m guilty of this too.” You see, Eminem humbling himself enough to realize he had to back off (and being kickass enough to share his story about it) helped shed a little light on the matter for me. So, I’m trying to do what I’ve been taught about good insight: keep what you have by giving it away.

See, Mr. Mathers did the math and realized he’d hafta find a good non-impacty shoe in for his shoes smacking the belt of a treadmill for more hours he spent awake than not. I, on the other hand, have been a tougher sell – even when held as a captive audience to the constant carnival of pain permeating my ankles. Thus, I’ve begun asking myself: Could I at least try looking at other cardio options that I can do outside? (That’s my thing – outdoor exercise). Things that don’t make me wake up walking like an alien that just overtook a body and isn’t sure how to ambulatorily conduct it yet?

Surely, there’s something out there for me…

Well, for one, I see other people taking their bikes out and they always seem pretty happy to be doing what they are (or are they just grimacing?) Plus them Schwinners are winners of slimness, typically with a body karate of a level black belt. Not a bad side effect if the high’s as good as it seems (they always look so determined unpacking their two wheels from their 4-Runners and blissful by the time they return). What’s the benefit of biking? Well, there’s less impact for one. I hate the idea of my toes not touching the ground… but I’m totally open to it.

Or I could kick it old school with the roller blades. In the park I frequent (most of them, really), there’s a nice pedestrian/bike lane shaded by a cathedral of tree foliage and low traffic (on the weekdays, at least). The nice thing this has over biking is that A.) It’s cheaper. B.) It’s a happy medium where at least my feet can kinda feel the ground beneath me. C.) It’s a total arse and thigh workout that could potentially land me buns and gams of the Brazilian Barbie variety. Not bad.

Then again, I could mix up what I’m doing during my actual run. What if the whole thing wasn’t just impact stuff? What if I spent five to ten minutes at the middle or end of my jog doing forward lunges toward my destination? Bounding plyometrics? Squats even?

And, finally, adhering to the old acronym R.I.C.E.R. would probably do me some good: rest, ice, compression, elevation, and referral for therapy. Because, in the end, you’ve gotta find what works best for you… by seeking out the help of someone schooled on the subject of ouchery and how to solve it. Granted, I’ve got the advantage of working in a health field. But up until recently, I’ve been like that one cancer doctor who knows better but sneaks out for a smoke every fifteen minutes anyway. Not practicing what I preach. Had I sought some advice earlier, I might’ve rowed right outta that water body of “whatever, I do what ah want” with pyramids on its periphery and been enjoying my moderate jogging routine. I’d also be feeling less like a Hostel abductee and more like my superhero self.

So, if you have the wherewithal to halt your habit, great. Go create a personalized plan with a professional. (That’s always the first step, isn’t it? Reaching out for a hand with your heel, hip, or heroin habit?) But if you’re a jogging junkie like I am, there’s a chance I’ll be seeing you at la casa de calf cast. ‘cause we both know I’m a cautionary tale who may or may not adhere even to my own good advice. This is normally where I’d say good luck to you and sign off. But for now – let’s just say it to each other, agree to try making better decisions, maybe phone a fellow fiend about it, and definitely phone that guy with the white coat to check it out.