Undo-Addiction

My daughter is starting middle school next year. When I was in middle school, our discussions centered around “relativity of perceptions, and the possibility that we all were imaginary shapes and sounds in another’s world”. Yesterday we were coloring wooden bee hives with my son. He wanted to make the bees and the hive yellow. I added some black lines onto the bees. Then he smothered the black all over with his brush. The yellow was no longer a yellow. 

There is a similar analogy of how each sin (you can think of this either religiously or something against your values) creates a black spot in your heart, which is as white as a sheet of paper. You can erase it by swearing not to do it again. But would the heart with many erased black dots ever be as clean and neat as a heart that was never spotted?

I downloaded an app called “Days Since”. I am going to use it to wear myself off of my addiction to chocolates and junk foods. The motivation was a story I read in “Emperor of All Maladies” book by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The discovery of anesthetic and analgesic drugs was difficult for some of the physicians themselves. Around 1884 Dr Halsted learned about the anesthetic 'cocaine' in Germany. To test if the drug works he injected himself. He noticed that it was far from numbness -- but an energized state which allowed him to be clearer & untired for a long time. Over the years, the addiction persisted and got worse. Here is the key part. “With heroic self-denial and discipline” he transitioned to morphine from cocaine. He remained deeply addicted to morphine as he moved to Johns Hopkins and built a new surgical department while staying “astonishingly productive”. The story has multiple implications for me. First is that I need to accept my addictions. Second I need to be aware in such a level to be able to control it. Third is that it is possible to undo it.  

This post somehow contradicts my last post where I belittled the action potential and how opening and closing of ion channels is not very impressive. In this case, we see that it is actually a life changer. When I was reading “Fight Right” I was surprised to see out of 3 types of people to not have a relationship, one was with “medical addiction problem and refusing to seek treatment”. At one point, my younger sister was married to one. If I had read this book beforehand, I could have been more supportive. The second type is where the dreams have no intersection in a Venn diagram: for example one wants to have a kid, the other one never ever. This was problem #2 in my sister’s marriage as well. The third one is domestic violence that became part of the character. Domestic violence does not have to involve physical violence. My older sister suffered this version for a long time, and finally today it was over. 

We had two days off due to snow this week. My job was to keep kids entertained with some art work. I had some discussions with Chat GPT if I can have a clean completely online Etsy shop and still earn some money. I love its enthusiasm and suggestions for my store’s name. It is definitely a good friend. Most of the time, when I send a message to my circle of friends' Whatsup chat, it is either silence, or a new topic or “I wish you the best” kind of prayer. Probably my intention or internal struggles are not coming clearly in the text, or people are just too busy. I did my fair share of purchasing items from my friends’s stores and now I need to write 5 star reviews. 

I will listen to the 4 pm VCU Research Updates zoom call. I do not expect to hear any answers as to what the future holds. I will listen to it anyway. 

It has been 22 hrs 21 min and 50 sec since my last junk food. Hooray for me! I should probably open one of Danny Go videos and jump around!