Addiction ~ A short story

“It is a good thing."

She mouthed while tying her hair in a pony tail.

“It is not pretentious, not a cry for attention. It's just an outlet. What if you feel a little better?”

She checked for her phone in her back pocket, took the car keys and looked in the mirror, “What if you feel a little better?..” she repeated under her breath.

Squinting her eyes she looked into her reflection, gave it a nod one last time before finally heading out.

*

She took the first step of the hall and sighed. It was going to be an interesting night. She almost took several U-turns on her way here. She saw big groups, smalls groups heading to the bars, making their Friday nights count. She remembered what that felt like.. Ah, how seasons change!

She looked back at the playground and chuckled under her breath. Little do the kids know what goes on in their school hall after the sun sets. That addicts from in and around the community get together and spill their guts out in the very place where they have been pledged to get their tiny brains nourished! The world does have a terrific sense of humour, she mused while stepping inside.

 

There were a couple of people inside already, huddled around the coffee machine. They all seemed eerily at ease in this environment, was she the only one with the knot in her chest?

There was a table next to it that seemed to have some stale cupcakes and donuts. She started walking towards it rather instinctively when a woman interrupted her inner monologue with some small talk. She tried her best to be as interested while being super vague (as was her specialty) and tried to get out of it as fast as possible. Before she could excuse herself, the lady handed her a leaflet and said, “This is your holy scripture from now on, okay? Put it up somewhere on your wall so that you can see it everyday. Trust me, that helps!”

She gently squeezed her arm and then left her to her own devices.

 

She grabbed a donut and stuffed it in her mouth. It tasted like rubber but it was her first meal of the day. She took another cupcake and looked at the leaflet. She had never once touched a holy book in her life, so this felt a little awkward. Was this supposed to be intimidating?

Ugh, you are doing it again! Overthinking over something you have NO reason to! It’s a figure of speech, get over it!

Fair. She looked around to check what everyone else was up to. She walked towards the coffee machine, still very much lost in her thoughts and poured herself one in one of the mugs.

 

“Alright then, can we all take a seat? Think we have quite a good turn out for a Friday evening!” said the man with the brightest smile. He had this powerful yet soothing voice and he seemed to be the mediator for the session.

She took a seat and took turns to look at everyone closely. None of them fit into the stereotypical look of a messed-up person. They all just seemed like normal human beings. Like her.

The mediator made some introductory speech about what these meetings are about and talked about how the place is meant to be a safe space for people to open up with no judgement whatsoever and try to get a better understanding of their emotions. He got them all to introduce themselves to the group before diving into the heavy stuff. It was reassuring to put a name into each of these faces, grounded her a little.

The mediator then started the session by telling his story and everybody just went quiet. He must have done this so many times by now, she thought. Does he tweak his story a little bit every time, she wondered! She knew she would. Try to reinvent herself every now and then. Needless to say, that is one of the reasons that got her here in the first place.

She was bored already, and they weren't allowed to use their phones either; "Full Attention" and whatnot. She looked back at the leaflet.

12 Steps in EA Meetings

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our emotions, that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

**

She read the entire thing with a frown on her face as she made some mental notes! First of all, she thought, bold of them to assume God has gender. And secondly, she was an atheist. So, could this be that these are signs from the universe that she doesn’t belong here after all?

It’s not that she was strictly an atheist, could be an agnostic at best. She definitely did not relate to any of the practises of the existing organised religions, need not necessarily mean that religions are trash, it’s just that she felt like human beings have the incredible ability to taint the noblest of things. She would know because she was the poster child for it! But it did not mean that she was against the conception of religion. She understood how definitions worked and how easily people tend to become hostage to it. She once had a discussion with a person about feminism and how they both shared the same ideology and yet the person refused to be associated with the word because of the “negative connotations” that are associated with it. That’s pretty much how she felt about religion!

In one of her spirals, she had this epiphany that truth is the one true God! It doesn’t alter for anybody, it houses all the knowledge of the world, it IS the knowledge of the world, it even checks out all the boxes: Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient! Now that’s a concept of God that she could get behind! Till this day, she is pretty proud of that derivation. Of course the next question is how do you manifest truth into a physical "prayable" form and incentify people to follow it throu –

“Hey, you there?” nudged the guy next to her.

She snapped back into reality, “Ya. Sorry, what is it?”

“Lost in our world, are we?” the mediator chuckled. He still had that reassuring grin on his face that she found was borderline annoying now. She wondered if that took practice as well. “Would you like to share anything today?”

“eeeyeah no.. I think I am just going to listen today, if that’s okay.”

“It is, upto you. Or you could say whatever you have in your mind. It could be something you had today, anything you plan on doing after you leave or even anything that has been bothering you for a while. We just mostly come here to vent. Sky is the limit!”

She contemplated on that for a while. She expected somebody else to pick it up and start talking but god, they were good. 5 minutes passed, or so it felt. Finally, she just decided to wing it.

“Okay... Well then, I hate freedom. You say ‘sky is the limit’, that’s the vaguest shit I have ever heard. I mean I get the sentiment but what does it actually mean? If there’s real freedom I would waste it. Without any limit, it's just chaos!"

There, she had said enough and went quiet, waiting for someone else to jump in. The mediator, however, encouraged her to go on, "You might want to start by greeting everyone and then maybe acknowledging your addiction?" he chimed in, "But it's totally upto you!"

Fair enough.

"Hello everyone, I am an addict. I don't know how to spit it out without sounding pretentious, but I guess I'll try. I am addicted to the internet, and I'm done making excuses for it. It is a problem."

 

She paused, and closed eyes and tried to imagine the expressions on everyone else's face. She was expecting a scoff from around her but heard nothing. She gulped and continued, staring absently at the floor.

"It's not that I'm addicted to any one aspect of it like social media, or streaming sites, no. I am just addicted with the entire package, like I cannot function without having internet at my disposal. I try to restrict my footprint on some aspects only to realise that it gets compensated by others.

You see, I am at least alive in the virtual world, unlike reality where I don't have any control over my life, it's like I am just trying to lead it as best as I can with somebody else's instructions. Wake up at this time. You have a physical body, nourish it, cherish it, work it so it looks presentable. Put these on, it'll make you look good. Not this one its out of fashion! Oh, now you did too much. Now didn't do enough! Now run after that, you'll be free after that. Just kidding, it's only the beginning.

It's like there is Always someone Constantly telling us what to do next. I didn't subscribe to this, excuse the pun! On the internet, I don't feel like I'm just following somebody else's dictation. And of course, I know that's an illusion as well, but that's the one I would rather be on than whatever it is that this is.

I am starting to be okay with this addiction, and yes, that is delusional. Or so I should believe.

I guess I'm just tired of not living my life and I don't know what to do about it. And internet is a good place for my temporary solace, but I am scared that it doesn't seem all that temporary anymore, and that has to be a problem."

***