From Passion To Addiction

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”― Edgar Allan Poe

No one is immune from falling into the web of addiction. The fact is that we’re all in some ways addicted to a thing or another. Some may lose themselves through their devices, others by eating until coma ensues. The point remains that we each have our own weak spots. A normal behavior can turn into an abnormal one when it significantly impairs with one’s daily functioning.

Drinking a beer a day isn’t particularly good or healthy, yet it doesn’t pose a big risk if you take otherwise good care of your health and are still able to keep up with life demands. The same stands true for someone who eats their emotions on the regular. The moment the green light can turn into a red one is when the behavior of your choice starts to impede with your normal functioning, and you keep engaging in it regardless of the serious consequences that come with it.

If the mere thought of having that very thing taken away from you is enough for you to freeze in panic, be it a substance, a behavior, or a person, you may want to check in with yourself to see if there’s an underlying reason that could explain such reaction. Limitless possibilities of the modern world may hold many advantages, but it equally holds the inconvenience of not having set limits ; we have to make those for ourselves. Being on the run for maximal pleasure can come with the cost of putting our well being at risk if we don’t know when to stop. Striking the middle ground can become tricky when temptation becomes our best buddy.

Running is my remedy, yet somedays I wonder if my love for it still falls in the healthy range of normality. It’s an uneasy task to define normality per say. What separates normal from abnormal? A couple of dry statistics? What makes normal the norm, and abnormality the enemy?