Addiction

As my recovery progresses along, I have been finding comfort at the indoor track at the Y. I have checked in with the heart center about the following activities to be told that I can't do any of them for several more weeks: climbing, yoga, light stretching, biking, snowshoeing, hiking, running, and ping pong (that call went out today). What I can do is walk...for as long and often as I would like.

Yesterday, I grabbed my music and headed over. It started innocently enough, as we were all walking together. I chuckled to myself as I watched the ping pong players below set up their tables. I wondered why they needed knee braces for the lightweight sport of ping pong. Have you watched the Chinese National team play ping pong? This was comparable and hard core. I was amazed at the full body force thrown behind every shot and realized that one knee brace was probably insufficient except this was only a practice. This intense ping pong practice started me down the wrong path.

I respond to competitive energy by wanting to compete, even if the competitive energy is one floor below. Right about then, the perfect storm converged: the walkers on the track started running, and this song came on YouTube - sinnerman ninhttpn my MP3 player:


This is my running song. The song that for the past 15 years has allowed me to go one more mile, climb one more route, ski one more hill. This song is irresistable. So there I was....what did I do?

Luckily, I started talking to myself:


They didn't tell you you couldn't jog................jogging isn't running......jogging one lap and walking one lap certainly isn't running.....jogging slowly isn't running...........hell, running slowly isn't running.


Holy shit! I sound like an addict. Someone who throws away their recovery and their future health on one moment of pulsating, in-your-face-fierce-ping-pong-playing-dudes pleasure. I'm not going to say how close I came to messing up but suffice it to say that I am now on Y restriction....I will now have a tracker at the track. Good luck honey!