I am an addict.  There, I’ve said it.  I’m addicted. 

The only way to begin recovery from any addiction is to admit that you have the addiction.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing life destroying, like smoking or drugs or alcohol, but there are still some that cause my Better Half to lose a hair or two.

Like playing Solitaire.  Red five on black six…..  I can play it in my sleep because it’s a mindless obsession to occupy my hands while my brain trips over itself.

Talk shows used to be an addiction.  But now, the only two talk shows on network T.V. that I can stomach are “Live!” with Regis Philbin and whomever and, when I can catch her, “Oprah.”  The others are usually “screaming” matches between parents who are afraid of their children, men who “have” acres of women, women who live with the fifth or tenth man, ad enauseum.  Jerry Springer has fallen to refereeing at a few of these screeching contests.  At least on the Learning Channel, it’s real monkeys shrieking at each other.

I used to love the news.  But a daily diet of the in-depth coverage of all the drive-by shootings, gang wars, massive wrecks and traffic tie-ups have given me terminal indigestion in my tummy transistor.  Admittedly, “13-year-old Joe Bloe, Jr. shuts out the Cubbies in a 6-0 ball game” is only exciting to his parents, relatives, friends and teachers, teammates and their families, his hairdresser and 200-300 more neighbors and friends at church or synagogue, but that’s plenty for some interest.  Since attacks, murders, and muggings are no longer “news,” why give in-depth coverage to them?

T.V. stations could simply announce one sentence to all human degradations.  “There were 3 murders, 2 rapes, 22 wrecks, 7 robbery attempts, 4 suspects jailed, and 2 death penalties carried out today.”  Leave the weather to the Weather Channel, Sports to ESPN, and stock market and world news to CNN and you’ve saved yourself 29 ½ minutes in which to broadcast some news of substance to people’s lives. 

Time was when “There’s a new position opening up upstairs!” or “Two new lanes opened on the Interstate today” was the fuel in my foolish carriage, but one of the characteristics of a self-driven Type A personality is a desire for freedom.  And none of the previous statements lead to the freedom to enjoy and appreciate the “Mommy, I need...” ones.

I won’t get rid of some addictions that plague my life.  Like big brown eyes behind the little fingers that are prying open my tightly shut eyelids on Saturday morning at 0-dark:30 (oh-dark-thirty) asking, “Are you awake, Mama?  I’m hungry.”  Or “Did you get all the grass stains out of my baseball knees, Mom?”  These slices of parental pizza gas up my get-up.

Some addictions were easy to give up.  Expensive vacations gave way to time spent in the woods with a bunch of Boy Scouts trying their seventh grade best to find and plague me with my only living nemesis -- spiders.