The Distraction Addictions

Dr. Susan Raeburn and I are on the last several weeks of completing a draft of our book Creative Recovery, in which we spell out a recovery program that takes into account the personality issues and special needs (like the need to create) of the creative individual. The book will appear from Shambhala next year.

In the course of working on the book I’ve thought a lot about those special addictions that might be dubbed the distraction addictions, addictions like compulsive Internet surfing, online shopping, and video game playing that have sprung up alongside our technological advances.

These new addictions are a lure for everybody, but they are especially alluring to folks like full-time writers who spend their working days on the computer a mere split second away from Internet access.

If we are even minimally anxious, resistant, discouraged, uncertain or unmotivated and therefore eager to find some way to avoid getting on with our writing, how strong the pull is to distract ourselves with a beckoning, right-at-hand Internet possibility.

The pull to avoid our work can prove so strong that it is fair to call our flight compulsive and to characterize our behavior in real and not metaphoric terms as an addiction.

How many millions of hours are writers losing to the distraction addictions?

And insofar as these behaviors represent a real addiction, the solution isn’t an easy one—what’s required is nothing less than a full-fledged recovery program.

Something similarly real, poignant, and prevalent are the adrenaline addictions.

Here a person who is addicted to fast driving, fast living, risk-taking and other hormonal wildness is using the body’s ability to create excitement as a substitute for the earned excitement that comes with nailing a page of the novel he or she is writing.

How much easier it is to get a rush by hopping on your motorcycle and racing down the road than by canalizing your energy, channeling your being into your creative work, and waiting for the rush of good adrenal feeling that may not come until late this afternoon—or next week—or not at all.

The distraction addictions and the adrenaline addictions are existential cheap thrills.

We have to guard against them, and deal with them forthrightly if they’ve gotten their claws into us, with as much honesty and care as we are obliged to deal with anything with the power to rob us of our time, energy, and authenticity.

A little Internet surfing, like a little social drinking, is no problem whatsoever.

But when you begin to lose control, the negative consequences and the feelings of guilt and shame commence, and you know, even as you have trouble admitting it, that you have a problem—well, you do.

If some form of distraction addiction or adrenaline addiction is a significant reality in your life, share your story with me and, with your permission, I’ll pass a few such stories along in this newsletter. I know that we’d all love to hear, so that we can begin to understand them more clearly and deal with them more effectively.

Article from Eric Maisel's Creativity Newsletter, 7/29/07.

See his site EricMaisel.com for ebooks, workshops and contact info.

Eric Maisel, Ph.D. holds Master's degrees in Creative Writing and Counseling, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology. He is a California licensed marriage and family therapist, a creativity coach and trainer of creativity coaches, a columnist for Art Calendar Magazine, provides regular segments for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, and teaches Ten Zen Second techniques through lectures, workshops, and teleseminars.

Dr. Maisel is widely regarded as America's foremost creativity coach and has taught thousands of creative and performing artists how to incorporate Ten Zen Second mindfulness techniques into their creativity practice.

Eric Maisel, Ph.D., is the author of more than thirty books, including Coaching the Artist Within, Becoming a Creativity Coach and Ten Zen Seconds: Twelve Incantations for Purpose, Power and Calm -- see titles at right.

Also see more articles by Eric Maisel.

[Image at top from article The Truth About Computer Addiction]

  

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