Bizz buzzed by the caretaker’s ear into the garden. She didn’t swat the air or spin in circles to avoid him. That’s because she knew he’d come. Bizz always came back.
The garden contained dazzling displays of sizzling pinks and luminous lavenders. Row after row of bush and tree and plant decorated the landscape. Their watercolored beauty brought creatures from far and wide, but Bizz was here for a few particular plants – those which, alongside their sweet nectar, produced caffeine.
Bizz visited for the caffeinated plants, though the nectar from those plants had dried. He came back again and again for the caffeine. There were many sources of nectar he flew past to drink from his darlings. Good for the plants, bad for the bees.
Despite being a bee, Bizz, like us, had a problem – he needs to find nectar. And his solution was to visit the caffeinated plants. He liked to visit, but they didn’t provide him nectar the way other plants would.
Once the nectar is gone, Bizz’s returns look like this:
Like Bizz, we use addictions to solve our problems, but addiction hinders us from solutions. In the graph above, Bizz uses caffeine to solve his problem instead of doing the more challenging task of gathering nectar.
Addictions provide relief from our problems. That relief is temporary. What we should seek is to address our issue.
There was a time in my life where my goal was to consume alcohol. Anytime I was free, I’d aim for peak consumption. My highlight was to go to the bars and get a good buzz.
After I hit my fill, I developed a habit of ducking out and walking home. This wasn’t around the corner; it was miles. I’m proud of my walking talents, but I wasn’t particularly adept at it while inebriated. So I’d get lost and wander around, drunk, late at night, in a city.
There were many escapades – getting lost, having a police officer threaten to ticket me as a sex offender for public urination, and sore legs. But they didn’t dissuade me.
One night, I got exceptionally turned around. It was about one in the morning, and I’d succeeded at achieving peak consumption. Despite knowing I was lost, I put my head down and kept plodding. The sidewalk had disappeared, and the shoulder I walked on slowly converged to the lanes.
Then lights came up behind me, and horns started blaring. I turned confused. Cars dodged around me with speed. Then, despite the drunk fog I’d thrown myself under, I realized this was a highway. And I was in the lane of the line of cars swerving past me.
I’m grateful those drivers were more aware than I was. There are alternative endings to that story. I managed to turn around and get myself back to safety.
To say that another way, my addiction led to more problems. Many nights out would be followed by cleaning up issues created by it. Although those nights created issues, they didn’t solve what I was facing. I used my addiction to avoid what was wrong instead of addressing the problem directly.
Not all addictions are as explicit. When we think of addiction, we imagine a homeless crackhead, not how it impacts our own lives. We use food to cheer us up when we’re upset we haven’t lost weight. We have a cup of coffee to make us believe we’ll do the work instead of doing it.
About a month ago, I finished a year of a goal to go without any psychoactive substances. The point wasn’t to avoid these substances because they’re wrong; it was to work on things that I wanted to work on – storytelling, my connections with people, and creating value.
Gabor Mate, the author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, said it well, “The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.” When you find yourself reaching for an easy fix, be mindful of what you’re doing. Do the things which get you where you want to go.
When Bizz fly’s back to the garden for caffeine instead of collecting nectar, he’s working against his well-being. Not only his well-being but the whole hive’s. When he wakes up the following day, not having collected nectar, he’s down about it, and instead of going and getting the nectar, he goes back for more caffeine.
