Addiction

I drink a lot of coffee. The students at the school where I teach reflect America’s current bipolarity (thin/fat, left/right, hedonist/ascetic), and the teetotalers say to me, with the sanctimonious tone typical of Vermont’s artist immigrants, “You sure drink a lot of coffee.” When I shrug and keep drinking, they push the issue: “Wouldn’t you rather not rely upon something to make your day possible?” I shrug again and say “There are worse things to be addicted to, don’t you think?”

And it’s true. I could be back in New York City, drinking too much and staying up all night, losing days to hangovers, missing work and embarassing myself, but I’m not. I’m going to sleep early tonight, so I can get up and go to the pool tomorrow, so I can be fresh for tomorrow’s long run. I’m not saying this because I’m pleased with myself. I’m saying this because I’ve clearly traded one addiction for another.

I bought a cyclocross bike recently (see “Newbie Once More”), I thought because I was sick of road riding after a long season on skinny tires. I realized today, as I was scouring Bikereg.com for races that would keep me competing each weekend until New Year’s Day, that I bought the bike so I could keep racing. Isn’t this an addiction? A habit I pursue regardless of near financial ruin and compromised relationships? Of course it is. Like the coffee, though, I would ask “Aren’t there worse things to be addicted to?” I’m in the best shape of my life. If doctors are to be believed, I’m putting years in the bank and managing stress (life, work, life) in a healthier way than self-medication.

It’s the question of why, though, a question that haunts all of us who train hundreds of hours for only, at most, dozens of competitive hours. Why the obsession, the skipped nights out with friends, the fights with loved ones, the weekends spent driving to races instead of hiking, climbing, exploring, or sleeping? I think, for most of us, we’ve traded a more insidious addiction for the ostensibly safer habit of endurance sports. I work with a guy who was a big time bike racer a number of years ago. He was also an alcoholic, and his stories resonate for me: the highs and lows, the constant sense that this thing that you thought was a good friend, an ally in difficult situations, was waiting patiently to devour you whole. He doesn’t drink any more, and he’s a huge role model for the kids, users or non, at our school. I also think of a runner a friend of mine told me about once, a superstar back in the golden days of American running, who rose to mythic proportions and then simply disappeared, leaving a family behind, to resurface twenty years later in Hawaii. “Someone who spends that much time out on the road,” my friend said, “is running from something.”

I hear that, and I’m sure that some of you out there do, too. If I hadn’t bought that cyclocross bike, if my next race were months distant instead of days, I would be out tonight with two of my friends who were going to a movie and then on to “Hit the bars.” I know where that leads. Take away my sense of responsibility to myself, to the hours I’ve already logged, and I will overachieve in another, darker realm. So even though it is an addiction, I’m going to keep drinking the coffee. Aren’t you?