Reading Deprivation

It started with a practice called reading deprivation. If you're like me, you always carry a mag or a book with you to read on train rides, or while waiting for a friend, or even at home. You're also always reading blogs and blogs and emails and chain emails. Reading deprivation is when you do no reading at all for a whole week. None. Zilch.

You realize reading is like the booze. You're addicted to it. You've become an alcoholic. You compulsively read to screen your mind unawares. On the train, you train your eyes on the page of a book and miss the scenery outside. Sitting on the toilet, you've a soiled pocketbook you read with each successive visit. You read emails even if all they are are mindless chain-mail forwards. (Worse if you forward them, too. Oh please don't forward chain mails. Just make a wish, repost this blog to all your newsgroups within the next twenty minutes or else you'll have bad luck for the next twenty years. But if you do, your wish will come true).

--Honest! It really works!--

Back to the issue: so there. Just as an alcoholic won't admit he's addicted to liquor, a compulsive reader won't admit he's addicted to somebody else's words. That's sad because sometimes we lose contact with the voice inside our heads, our individuality, the me in me.

It's not easy! If I'm on reading deprivation, I compulsively grab at anything I can read. Billboards, menus, newspaper headlines, shampoo labels.

Now, what's interesting with the practice is that when you deprive yourself of this one addiction, other addictions or dependencies you weren't aware of pop up.

Oh, poor me. I can't read for a week. Got nothing to do. Hm... what's in the ref? Is that chocolate cake still there? How about some yema? And ice cream!

Whoops! I'm addicted to sugar, too!

So, avoid the bookshelf, avoid sweets. Eat veggies and fruit! OK, let's see if we can get a good salad recipe on Food Network...
.
...and before I know it, I'm staring at the TV for hours watching reality shows.

There you go! TV addict, too. Hm... Now what? Get on the phone and chat with a friend for hours. Hm... not very productive, and quite intrusive of my friend's time, too.

How about the Playstation! Yeah, I'll play a game! Yeah!

Devil Rico: Why not get on the net and watch some porn. You deserve it. What with no reading and sugar and TV and all.

Uh oh.

And so you get deeper and deeper and realize things about yourself. That's what reading deprivation is for me, I think. Now, realizing things about me isn't enough. Now that I know I've dependencies, now what?

Now, that you've got the ball in your hands, get your head in the game!

You see, we're biochemical beings. We all are subject to hormones. I got this from artist Julia Cameron. She wrote: "We are a system of intricate hormonal, adrenal, and pulmonary interactions. All of us have experienced a 'flood of rage,' a 'dry-mouthed fear,' a 'wash of terror,' or a 'heart-pounding' panic. These are chemical reactions."

That explains why I'm addicted to sugar. Chocolate releases endorphins and I'm addicted to it. Maybe that's why I vegetate in front of the TV or oversleep; to avoid a certain fear or to medicate a wound not quite healed yet in me, afraid to face it to the light and the sting of medicine.

These are my addictions. If you don't recognize yourself in the dependencies mentioned above, are you addicted to: shopping? unlimitxt? video games?

So what do I do? I suddenly have so much free time. I can:
*finish the novel / play I'm writing, even just a few pages
*vacuum my room
*repaint the walls in my room; I've always been wanting to.
*write the article on reading deprivation and post it on my blog
*fix the bookshelf
*exercise more
*go dancing with friends
*pray

I learn, instead of reading a play, why not go see one? Why not write one? Instead of watching HBO, why not do acting exercises? As taught universally in all AA groups: the first step to recovery is admitting you need help. The second is becoming humble enough to receive help. Which is why we pray. We admit where we are weak and beg God for help.

Psalm 139. v23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
v24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.