Addiction

Yesterday's run went off without a hitch - except that the first leg was killer. I really detest running in the cold. I don't like the way the wind whips through my body, making me shiver. I don't like it when I inhale and the air is so cold it burns my nose, mouth and lungs. The hardest part for me is getting started and willing myself to continue - it takes about 10 minutes to overcome that. Coincidentally, 10 minutes into the run is just about the time that those lovely endorphins begin to kick in.

Ahhh, that runner's high. Isn't that what it's really all about, folks? Surely we runners can understand the "why" behind cocaine or opiate addiction. The rush is the same. The body's reaction to the drug is the same (for this purpose I am calling endorphins a drug, albeit a naturally occurring one). The daily pining for that rush is the same. The only difference is the laziness factor. Get the lazy addicts off their asses and make them run 3-5 miles a day. Every day. It would change their lives.

There will be those who stumble upon this blog by sheer accident and who happen to read the above statement and feel the need to argue or bitch about it. Addiction is such a passion-filled topic, much like abortion, religion and politics are. God knows I've argued up one side and down another about my caffeine addiction - and I've battled (and won) a nicotine addiction. To further complicate things, I should also add that I have a master's degree in clinical psychology and for a number of years worked as a substance abuse therapist in a private methadone clinic. Oh, the stories....but I'll not get to any of that here and now. I therefore DO, in fact, have more than a little knowledge about (1) addiction and (2) treatment thereof. One could even call my above ramblings and speculations about such treatment as a "hypothesis," the definition of which I have scribbled on my brain tablet as "an educated guess."

And so....should one feel the need to argue addiction with me, let's do it, but let's first agree to be professional, mature and respectful.

AND NOW BACK TO THE SHOW

I'm not sure how all that happened, but I don't like to temper my stream-of-consciousness, and that's how it was in my brain, so that's how it came out on the blog.

Anywho....

I'm so excited to be home today. This is the first time in 4.5 years at my job where we've had MLK day off. Wooo! [I'm no longer in the psychology field - I have lept across disciplines and am imprisoned in the legal field now].

God, how complicated! No wonder change is so hard. Just trying to explain all the changes in my life is complicated as hell. Miss A was married to a spineless and manipulative Mr. M and had children, went to graduate school, worked as a T, divorced M because of X, Y and Z, then went to work as a C, moved to A and now is an L.

I wonder if dad the doctor in engineering or brother the genius could come up with a mathematical equation to make it all fit. I can hear MENSA-boy now: "It's easy, you just take this equation and plug in the variables A, M, T, X, Y, Z, C and L like so; and then solve."

How 'bout you take your equation and you plug those variables right up your....

Ok back to my other life. There is laundry to be done, a nasty refrigerator to clean (thanks again, Mr. Nobody, for the spilled sodas), trash to take out, cat litter to empty, clean dishes to unload, dirty dishes to load, pet hair to vacuum, lunch to make and clean up, and on and on and on - and then I get to selfishly take my running time.