Almost Healed

Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with heroin or cocaine. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks.

That is our theory of addiction.

Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.”

So he built Rat Park. Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of sex. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water.

But here’s what's fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction.

What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong.

The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard.

The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked.

Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.

Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can't bear to be present in our lives without being on something, be it drink, drugs, sex, shopping... We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.

And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with ‘things’ not people.

You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff.

In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume.

Drug addiction is a subset of that.

Credit: Johann Hari

Here we are, day seven of my illness and I realise that, in my life, I have NEVER been down with a cold/flu/virus for longer than three days.

I think that, subconsciously, I knew that because BGWLBH was here for support, and it was safe to get sick and that she would take care of my world while I rested, recovered and recuperated. I feel overwhelming gratitude for that.

I mentioned recently that it’s been ten years since I was sick - September 2012 - I love that I have eleven years of my blog to search through whenever I’m not sure of dates of events!

So today, my symptoms are those of a head cold.

I was up at 9am, made tea and toast to eat in the sun by the pool. I spent two hours in the art space sorting through and organising all the art paraphernalia in the cube cupboards.

BGWLBH prepared all of the ingredients for sweet potato hash browns so all I had to do was put it all together and cook them.

Personally, I thought the hash browns were disgusting, but between them, Adoring Husband and BGWLBH polished off 18 of them! I guess they weren’t too bad after all.

After lunch, I had to finish off ‘not so psychotic’ dog, Colli’s grooming.

AH had taken her to the groomers in the morning. It had been far too long since her last grooming and it took much longer than usual for them just cut through her fur. Colli wouldn’t allow them near her face so it was still gross and covered in muck. Her claws hadn’t been clipped either.

I spent about 40 minutes fighting her to clean and cut her facial area and then clip her nails.

She’s now a brand new dog with a bounce in her step and (without hair over her eyes) she has somewhat better vision.

After that, I sat down to watch my quiz shows and thankfully, it was AH’s turn to cook the usual Friday night marinated chicken wings, so I kept my feet up for the remainder of the day.

I’ve been through a shipload of tissues today while my nose is running like a tap and it’s been quite cool for most of the day so I’ve been wearing my ugh boots and a hoodie all day. I even closed my bedroom window last night!

I’ve just watched the NRL Friday night footy and now I’m watching the end of the Carlton AFL match, which they are winning.

I should get some sleep and hopefully feel even better tomorrow and finish off the art room.

Nite all.