Owain F Carter

Addicted to Sleep

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[Submitter's note: If you haven't guessed -- he's joking 100%. He told
me. Believe it.]

navin wrote:
So that's it! When you're fed up and tired of midterms and stuff,
you turn to alcohol with a kinda self-destructing instinct and
become pathetic alcoholics?

     you shouldn't make fun of self-destructive habits like drinking,
navin.  these problems affect a lot of people when day-to-day stress
becomes too much to bear.  it's easy to laugh when you haven't seen people
gradually collapse under the strain of stress and the habits that
accompany it.
     it's not just drinking, either - the danger lies more in the idea
that a simple physical pleasure can be a good way to deal with complex
life problems.  my own personal struggle is with sleep.  for years i took
it for granted that lying down and forgetting my problems for a few hours
was a healthy way to deal with life's daily trials, until one day i
stepped back and realized how much of my life it had taken over, how
regularly i was using it to put off real problems instead of facing up to
them.
     ever since that day it's been a struggle, and i now realize my habit
is deeply enough ingrained that i will never be completely cured - every
time stress or fatigue builds up, my thoughts turn to sleep as the "easy
way out".  but treatment has helped me learn to fight this temptation, to
stand up on my own as much as i can.  i still sleep a lot - i probably
always will - but at least now i understand the insidiousness of my
dependency and the self-destructiveness inherent in it.
     sandra, i know it can be hard to take that first step of facing up to
your problem, and catcallers like navin don't make it any easier.  but as
someone who's been there, i have to tell you that your life can only start
to move forward once you admit the abusive nature of your habit and start
working to control it.  the addiction is stronger than you realize, and if
your case is anything like mine, you'll need all the help you can get.