As you probably all already know, I suffer from (Medication Resistant) Severe Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, and (undiagnosed) Executive Function Disorder. Though the path to get where I am now has certainly not been easy, it has been so worth it. The issues I face now, as I have written before, are getting used to my “new” life without depression. However, I have recently discovered another problem beginning to surface. I will not lie to you all, I suffer from several addictions, that I may or may not have stated before. Not that I am not open about what I suffer from, it just has never really come up before. When I turned 21 several years ago, I immediately got hooked on blackjack. For those of you who don’t know, blackjack is a card game where the goal is to reach 21, or get a higher number than the dealer, without going over 21. So, safe to say, I have a gambling addiction, or rather, I am a compulsive gambler. Over the past 4 years, since my 21st birthday, I have amassed somewhere around the lines of 30,000 dollars worth of gambling debts. I have maxed out all of my credit cards, lost almost all of my savings, and spent an uncomfortable amount of time in casinos. Next, we have my alcoholism. While I was unemployed, and receiving unemployment benefits, I would get excessively drunk almost daily. My drink of choice was beer, as it is cheap and satisfying. Plus, “beer drunk” felt a lot more controllable to me than “liquor drunk”…if that makes any sense. Though, I was horribly mistaken. I drank for two main reasons. One, to “quiet” the thoughts in my head, or at least slow them down. Two, to make the time I spent doing nothing, go by faster. I also developed this unhealthy habit of drinking a 12 pack of beer, by myself, every weekend. Granted, drinking started as a social thing for me while I was in college. However, it quickly became a crutch I used while depressed. So much so, that even after my depression began to fade, I continued to drink regularly. Even as I was prescribed more and more medications, I continued to drink. Lastly, I am an avid tobacco user. I used to smoke a pack (20 cigarettes) of Marlboro “Reds” every day, for at least 5 years. I know that this doesn’t seem like much, especially compared to other smokers. Though for me, it was a lot. It also was a compulsive action, to curb my anxiety, as well as a social action, through which I made most of my “college friends”. So to sum things up, I have distanced myself from my gambling addiction in the past year, I continue to fight my drinking habits, and I have switched to the Juul e-cigarette, because it is incredibly cheaper, and “safer” than Marlboro Reds cigarettes. So I am indeed making progress with my bad habits, at least those that damage my physical health, or finances.
Though what I wanted to talk about, before I got stranded on that tangent, was my “new” problem that I have noticed with my recovery. I even suppose that this problem is something that most mentally well people deal with as well. It is seeking comfort in all things. Comfort in my new job, comfort in my finances, comfort in my mental and physical well-being, comfort in life. This is why I was hesitant to use the word “new” when describing this problem. Because, if you think about it, this issue is probably the root of most of my compulsive behavior. I just want to be comfortable in life, in my own skin, in my own head. I don’t really think that that is too much to ask for. Yet, comfort comes with it’s own problems as well. Like complacency for example. If I get too comfortable in my “new” life, then I will begin to make the same mistakes again that I made while depressed. For crying out loud, I use a pseudonym to hide my identity while blogging, but I am writing this article on my work computer, right next to my co-workers. Like HELLO?! I am beginning to get used to being comfortable. Which to me, is a very large problem. It isn’t really a new problem, as I “got comfortable” with being depressed, and began to use it as an excuse for just about everything. Though, what do I do now? I don’t have any go-to excuse anymore, I have to actually come up with valid reasons to get out of doing things. That is why comfort, to me, is deadly to mental well-being. If you get too comfortable, not only will you begin to expect it, changing the neural pathways in your brain associated with pleasure seeking, but you will also begin to make mistakes, and not care about them. For example, everyone I work with shows up to the labs around 7:45 am, I am scheduled to begin work at 7:30 am. Though if I wake up a little late, or am slow getting dressed, or slow to get to my car, and I show up (technically) late, I don’t mind it anymore. It used to be that showing up late would give me a panic attack, so I would always show up to places at least 15 minutes early. I mean, yeah it’s great that I don’t have these panic attacks anymore, but I can’t get used to showing up late for work. Because for me, that will destroy what little structure I have been able to build in my life. So I suppose that the moral of this story, is not to get too comfortable with life. Yes, some level of comfort is definitely a goal worth striving for. However, if you get so comfortable, that you get complacent in your life, then something needs to change. From my mind to yours, Alan Wolfgang, signing off.