Confessions of An Addict

I’m an addict!

No, you won’t find needle marks on my arms or between my toes.  I haven’t joined the opioid crowd. I had my single, daily beer today – that was it.  My computers are free of porn sites.  And I haven’t spun a roulette wheel or said “hit me” at a blackjack table in 20 years.  And I’ve never bought a lottery ticket.

My addiction would be viewed by most as hardly an addiction, or as something harmful.  But I assure you, viewing it from this side, it is, without question, a harmful addiction with its own unique destructive power.

Like all addictions, it started slowly and has continued to layer on over the last 30 years.  Not unlike how other addictions get started.

As with other addictions, mine is also difficult to reverse or shed.  And like recovery from other addictions, the other side is bright and promising.

What is the addiction?

I’m addicted to learning!

I hear your eyebrows raising.  Whaaa?

Perhaps a better way to describe my addiction is “information accumulation.” And its start was innocent enough.  It came with exposure to the world of “positive thinking”, “self-help”, and “personal development” in the early 1980’s through books and audio programs by Robert Schuler, Dale Carnegie, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley, Norman Vincent Peale, Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Tom Hopkins, to name but a few.

What started as reading maybe a book in a month has grown to a book a week or more to where I’ve averaged over 70 books a year for the last 6 years.  And not a novel in that mix.

Hey, I get it if you don’t relate to this.  I’m a rather unproud outlier in this area.

The addiction deepened and took on a new dimension with the advent of the internet and browsers (1990’s)  to the point today where my high-speed access, Evernote, Feedly, Medium.org,  blog subscriptions and alerts galore have enabled the learning and accumulation addiction to reach the point of total overwhelm.

Is there a 12-step program for this?  Perhaps an “Accumulation Anonymous” chapter somewhere?  If you know of one, write me.  I need one, fast!

So why the need for a detox?

Blame Tim Ferris, author of “Four-hour Work Week”.  OK, I confess – my addiction has caused me to read this book four times.   That’s nuts, relatively speaking.  I get it.

The reason I keep going back to Ferris’ book, and others, is I am caught in a destructive mindset that says the “answer” to my inaction and procrastination lies in the next book, or blog, or podcast, or whatever escape mechanism chooses to raise its head.  I subconsciously am hoping for the emergence of a magic bullet from the next element I dive into to move me to action.

Chapter 5 of Ferris’ book is unkind – in a positive way.  It’s confrontational – in a transformational way.  His transformational unkindness reminds me that I’m caught in a trap of inventing things to do to avoid the important. That’s what my accumulation has become.

I’ve come to realize that all the motivation, self-help material that I’ve consumed has been incredibly helpful and moved me out of my comfort zone and helped me grow.  But I’ve reached the point that I am now in the rut of consuming without changing, consuming without creating at an acceptable level and, most concerning, consuming without being conscious of, or remembering, what I’ve learned.

So, lacking an appropriate AA chapter for this, I’m putting myself into a self-designed rehab.

Here’s a glimpse of what I’m dealing with in this addiction and what I have to overcome.  Maybe some of you out there can relate, although I fear I’m part of a small crowd.

1. I have read approximately 650 books over the last 10 years – one a week or more. It’s going to be difficult to avoid putting my nose into a book for a couple of hours in the morning.  But it’s gotta happen!
2. There have been less than five novels in that mix. My reading and study have been very horizontal – self-development, positive psychology, health-and-wellness, nutrition, brain health, advances in bio-science, career planning, the changing retirement world – I’ll stop there although there are other topics. Boring stuff for the well-adjusted homo-sapien.
3. I have 938 podcasts on my 10-year old Apple Classic I-pod. Embarrassingly, I’ve listened to a very large percentage of these (mostly as I work out – it’s the only way I can avoid terminal boredom with my workout routine). Perhaps it’s divine providence and a hint that rehab is necessary that this Apple relic finally gave it up and took this portable audio library with it.   A good omen!
4. At any given point in time, I have 12-15 blogs/newsletters cluttering my email inbox, having succumbed to an offer for a free something-or-other and offering up my email address in exchange. I delete one and another one sneaks in to replace it.  The temptation to read something with each newsletter arrival has been doggedly persistent.  Equivalent, I suppose, to a quick fix. Rehab calls for finding more “unsubscribe” links.
5. I currently have three on-line courses I’ve invested in that are in various stages of completion – one on health and wellness coaching, one on writing and self-publishing, and one on successful blogging. I forget what I learned in each one when I return to it.  Yuck!

I’m not expecting cold-sweats nor do I think I need a weekly support-group meeting to pull this off.  But it won’t be easy.

Some would say I’m trying to replace good habits.  No.  I’m going to replace an excess of good habits.  Reading, study, learning, research, stretching your mind are good – and important.  Until they aren’t.  I’ve reached that point.  Because they have gotten in the way of – as Seth Godin puts it – shipping.  Shipping to Godin – a word class “shipper” – is action, producing something.

My excess of habits has aligned itself with lizard-brain “resistance” to effectively infuse my day with procrastination and comfort level.  Not a great formula for shipping or doing something with meaning and impact, which is what my written life-goals remind me daily that I’m supposed to be doing – only to be stuffed down by my lizard brain.

Well, the “universe” spoke loud and clear these last ten days by serving up – ironically – three blog posts back-to-back-to-back on this very topic, all from different writers and sources. I’ve learned to pay attention to the universe when things like that happen.

Combined, the three blogs have motivated me to begin development of my own “12-Step and AA (Accumulation Anonymous)” program.  Here are the first six steps.  I’d have more completed but I’ve got this book and course I need to finish (yes, the withdrawal will be difficult and take a while).

1. Step #1: Read fewer fluffy, front-loaded motivational self-help books.  After 30 years of these, I’m good with the basics.  The foundation is in place.
2. Step #2: Read less each day (see #3); write more.
3. Step #3: More nuanced reading; go deeper with my learning and more vertical, less horizontal with the topics.
4. Step #4: Stop plowing through books that aren’t reaching me.  If it ain’t resonating, quit and put or give it away -don’t get hung up on the “sunk cost” of having paid for the book.  Come back to it only if, later on, it fits the “nuanced, vertical” category.
5. Step #5: Take advantage of the positive impact of “spaced repetition” and “interleaving” on long-term memory and strong neural connections by having several books going at one time on different topics/problems and in different formats i.e. physical, Kindle and audio.
6. Step #6: Get skilled at avoiding long books built around simple ideas.  Example:  many self-help books.  Study table of contents on Amazon before any buy.

The remaining six steps require some more time and thinking.  More to follow.

Maybe my travails will be helpful although I totally understand if this seems trivial and totally unrelatable.  I classify my issues as a “high-class problem”.  I could be sitting here lamenting my decline into dementia regretting having never read a book since high school or college graduation, which is the case for 38% and 42% or our population respectively. But it feels good to know I’m in the 5% of our population that reads 95% of the books.

Notwithstanding the whining I’ve foisted on you above, it also feels good to know that this mushy 2 ½ lbs of fatty acid between my ears is not going to be a victim of “use it or lose it” syndrome.

Any thoughts?  Or comments?  Let me know below in the comment section.