Confessing to an Addiction

So here’s the deal. Yeah, I haven’t used that phrase in a long time. But here it is anyway.

Way back in about 1977 I got hooked. I was totally addicted. I used to sneak home during my lunch hour just to feed my addiction. Others at school used to ask me to share what I knew about it, and I did. Some of them were addicted too. I went off to college and maintained my addiction. In some ways it even got worse. I’d plan my day around it. I was a slave to that addiction.

Once I graduated and joined the real working world I was no longer able to indulge in my addiction as I had when in school. I tried going cold turkey, but I just couldn’t do it. Inevitably I’d turn to friends who I knew could give me a fix. For several years though, I did pretty well without it.

Then I stopped working and stayed home full time. I needed something. There were too many empty hours in the day. I relapsed and headed full bore back into my addiction. I hid it well. I never talked of it except with those who I knew would understand, those with whom I could share among kindred spirits. We had our little circle of friends that we talked about often – Joe and Ruth, Brooke, Tad, Jenny, Angie, Jesse, Adam, Palmer, and many others. They all had their ups and downs over time as did we all.

When I went back to work I found a way to feed the addiction this time. I found a way that I could indulge in my addiction though it did mean that W found out more about my addiction than he had known before. There was no hiding it from him at that point though as he was at home, not working, and I could find no time when I could indulge outside his presence and knowledge.

Through the years it seems that this addiction has just always been with me, one of the constants of my life. Indeed it’s been with me for more than 30 years, most of my life. It is an addiction I have no intention of ever trying to break even though this week the addiction has become almost more an obsession than an addiction. There’s been foreshadowing for weeks now that disaster was impending, and lo and behold, finally it hit this week, most heavily today.

Now it’s driving me crazy, this addiction of mine. I have to wait a whole weekend before I can indulge again. I have no choice. It isn’t there on weekends. All My Children is only on Monday – Friday, noon central time on ABC. I’ll have to wait until next week to find out who survives and who succumbs in Pine Valley’s latest tragedy, a devastating number of tornadoes on a dark stormy night. I already know that Babe is on her way out, and Kendall will stay in a coma until the actress who plays her returns from an extended honeymoon. I certainly do wonder about many others though. What about Annie and Emma? What about Aidan? What about Opal? What will Adam and Erica do while trapped in the hidden tunnel in the mansion? What will Ryan and Greenlee do while trapped in the rubble? And why on earth has Bianca returned?

If I knew any way to get my grubby little hands on episodes before they aired I’d be right there this weekend, watching every moment and grumbling all the way at how slow the story moves.

Yes, I Trueself, am an All My Children addict. Shameful as that may be it is true. As if my own life weren’t soap opera enough. Although maybe that’s what I like about it. Nobody on there is less messed up than me (okay, well maybe Joe and Ruth, maybe), and yet they all continue to make it day by day even through the worst of times – infidelity, prison time, mental illness, you name it they’ve had it. Why, I could almost think I was normal comparing myself to them.

And the point of this post? Oh, I don’t know. The show is just weighing heavy on my mind with all the turmoil right now, and I had to talk to somebody about it, you know? And I’m thinking that the people I’m hanging with this weekend aren’t going to be interested so that left you great big Internet. You’re welcome.