Switching Addictions

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Hi, my name is Andrea, and I read Runner's World magazine.

[Hi, Andrea].

I started reading it a couple of years ago. At first, it was just a glance or two when I was at Barnes and Noble trying to pass a cold, rainy Sunday. Then I started looking at it more carefully, actually reading the articles and analyzing the nutrition charts. After that, I maybe tried a few of the lunges and ab crunches. Finally, I bought and issue and took it home. I was hooked. I even started subscribing, and I read it religiously for two years.

What I love about Runner's World are the inspirational stories and columns that seem to come standard with every issue. And these are my guilty pleasures; pleasures, because I feel inspired by the stories of the struggles and victories of people who have faced much harder circumstances than I have, and guilty because despite the inspiration, I never quite seem to get myself in gear.

The Shame! The Joy!

Because I'm not a runner, I hide my issues of Runner's World from everyone save a few people who already know me well enough not to laugh. It's sort of my Chicken Soup for the Lazy-Ass Soul.

It was the Warmup article in the March 2007 issue of Runner's World that really made me think. "Home Run" introduces us to Brent Ion, a marathoner who is also a part of a homeless advocacy group in Palm Beach County, Florida. Brent started a running group for the homeless citizens of Palm Beach County, hoping to reach people with drug addictions and teach them about how structure and discipline can lead to accomplishments and self-confidence.

Homeless people who have joined Ion's group, known as the HomeTeam, have found that running and marathon training has helped them overcome their addictions to drugs and alcohol. Even though many of them admit that they only joined because each HomeTeam member gets a free pair of sneakers, these people have overcome meth, cocaine, and alcohol addictions as a part of their training and friendship.

Switching Addictions

Something that isn't mentioned in the article, however, is the idea of switching addictions. There is such a thing as a positive addiction. I know this, because once in my life, for a very limited time, I was addicted to running.

When I say that it was for a limited time, I mean really limited. When I got addicted to running, I was in high school. I started running around the inside of my school after class was out. A lot of sports teams did this when the snow got too deep outside, and I sort of went at my own pace and pondered the meaning of high school life. It wasn't too bad — I found that if my mind wandered to other things, I could run a mile without feeling it.

After a few weeks, I was feeling pretty good. And then one day in gym class during our jogging warm-up, I experienced a runner's high. It felt GREAT. I had never had one before, and it was so exhilarating. Even though we were supposed to be lifting weights that day, my P.E. teacher allowed me to just run laps around the gym for the whole hour. The strange thing was that I didn't want to do anything BUT run, and the elation that I felt when running stayed with me for a long time.

About a week later, my appendix burst, and that pretty much put an end to my running career. It took me a long, long time to be able to climb the stairs again without seeing spots, and I never really started running again. 

Such Thing as a "Good" Addiction?

But back to the addicts in Runner's World. Brent Ion, the guy who headed up the group, started running in 1998 to help him kick his addiction to nicotine. From what I can tell, it seems that Brent traded one habit for another - he took up a positive addiction in lieu of a negative one. And all of his recruits seem to be doing the same thing.

Running as an addiction isn't a new idea. Other people have managed to form different positive addictions. Many smokers find that their nervous fidgeting can be calmed by crafty undertakings.

Of course, calling yourself a "running addict" can be construed as annoyingly cutesy, or a sign that someone has an exercise addiction. If someone can't stop running, then that's not a good thing either, but my guess is that exercise addiction is more rare than, say, alcoholism. And it's probably not a stretch to say that people who replace a bad addiction with a good one, like running or knitting or whatever, probably have the need to keep participating in their good addiction, less they feel the pull of the old, bad addictions too strongly.

Moo-lah

Thus, addicts have an impetus for remaining active, or crafty. The best part, from my standpoint, is the money saved.

The best part about a positive addiction (or a replacement habit, or whatever you want to call it) is that the replacement habits are usually inexpensive. Unless you go from, say, cocaine addiction to model train obsession, then you're probably saving a bundle.

The cost of smoking varies depending on how much you smoke, but a conservative estimate of the yearly cost in cigarettes alone is upwards of $1,700 a year. And that's among the cheaper addictions, really. Alcoholism is an even more expensive addiction to suffer from, even before counting the cost of healthcare associated with treating the disease.

Running, juggling, knitting, bird watching, obsessive Scrabble playing; these habits are virtually free after initial investment of maybe $100 or so (knitters: stay away from the alpaca yarns — that's where they getcha).

I don't have any truly health-threatening addictions, unless you count caffeine and sloth, so I'm hoping to replace sloth with running. I went for my first run last night. Maybe "run" is a bit of a stretch. I went for my first "jog for a block, walk and gasp for a block," but I'm hoping to turn it into an addiction if I can. 

I should mention that I obviously don't advocate that people with very serious drug addictions merely get up and start running all over the place. Even more common addictions, such a nicotine, can be helped immensely through medication and medical intervention. And they always say that you should start an exercise program only after consulting your doctor, so consult away.