You


Let’s say you run.

You, not me.

You’re not running with a spear or an axe waving above your head towards some tasty animal you wish to catch and consume and you’re not running away from a big monster with a bad disposition and pointy fangs who wishes to consume you. You’re not even running away from the police if you’re a criminal, which I hope you’re not.

No. You are just running around in circles, all the way around the outskirts of the local university, over and over and over again. You’re doing this a couple nights a week. For ten years.

This might sound a little pointless or crazy to some, sure, but you’re the one who is doing it and I am not passing judgment.

After ten years of this drudgery, you start smoking cigarettes again. Almost immediately, running in circles loses whatever attraction it once held. Its feasibility. Walking begins to seem like a better idea or at least a decent compromise. I mean, after all, it’s not like you’ve been trying to catch food or avoid being food. Relax. Walk around a bit. You’ll get there.

Two more years go by and you discover that four out of five doctors from the 1950s were wrong when they said that smoking calms the nerves, aids digestion, and makes you look sophisticated.

You quit smoking again. Everyone applauds.

Now at this point, four out of five doctors from the 2010s would probably recommend that you not simply pretend the intervening two years never happened. Do not, my fine runner-to-nowhere, kick back in with a full intense running regimen as you attempt to replace your addiction to smoke and drink with an addiction to running. Definitely don’t simultaneously up the ante on your workout routine at the same time.

C’mon. You know better than that.

Unless you don’t know better than that. Unless you begin running in circles, maybe even six miles at a go, and then waving those appropriately-named dumbbell things around like there are no potential ill consequences to be had.

Because if you do that, surprise, bad things can happen to you. Maybe a ruptured disc. Maybe a pinched nerve. The doctors, well, they’re still not sure precisely how you’ve messed yourself up. They are pretty sure you’ve messed yourself up, though.

Two last bits of advice, since your life choices have become so shockingly poor as to require do’s and don’t’s from the likes of me:

First, when the doctor tells you you’ve done this to yourself, don’t say, “So what I’m hearing you say is that you believe I oughta go back to smoking.” Unless you have one of those 1950s doctors, in which case, you know, give it a go.

Second, when you’re lying on your back at 3 in the morning screaming out in pain and scaring the bejeezus out of the cat, don’t try and convince your blogging friends that your life has been ruined by the discontinuation of your bad habits. That would be insincere, bad form, and really, I would have expected a lot better out of you.

Comments

  1. When Eminem gave up drugs he became addicted to running. One addiction seems to replace another, but some are healthier for you. I was addicted to eating candy, so I gave it up, only to replace the bags of sweets with sugary buns. Now I've piled the pounds on. I need to be addicted to celery.

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    1. I am known to be able to eat anything. But celery is something I just can't handle. If someone were addicted to celery, I'd have to believe that person is one real sicko who society needs to target and ostracize. Stick to sugary buns, please!

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  2. Sorry to hear about your back, Harry. Physical exercise sucks, especially the older we get.

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    1. The irony in all of this is that I've been feeling so lousy that I haven't been hungry and have lost nearly 20 pounds with no exercise.

      Obviously, that's not healthy weight loss, but considering how I got here, still ironic, I think. Reall ironic, not Alanis Morissette ironic.

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  3. Run, rabbit, run
    Dig that hole, forget the sun
    And the moment the hole is done
    Don't sit down, it's time to dig another one.

    Or, you know, not.

    Hurt my own back before, and, man, I know exactly what you're going through.

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    1. When I sobered up, I found the line from that same song, "And then one day you find ten years have got behind you / No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun" to be particularly relevant. Except for me it had been twenty years.

      Encourages me to know people have been through the back through and gotten through. About one-third of my practice is Social Security Disability, and back problems are the #1 disabling condition... by a mile.

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  4. Poor Harry. You were only trying to do something good for yourself. Hope the pain eases off soon and then, you know, take it slow okay?

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    1. Thanks. I try to write these posts in series of between 7 and 10, and this one is progressing along in a very strange and unexpected way.

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  5. OCD covers a broad range of behaviors, including self-destructive ones. As Dr. Melfi advised Tony Soprano: "with today's pharmacology there's no reason for anyone to suffer". As the Voice on your Teevee who disclaims for Big Pharma's latest cure-all (and is Not-a-Doctor) ... talk to your doctor about Paxil.

    One last movie quote, from Sean Connery in 'The Untouchables': "Enough of this running shit."

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    1. Every time I hear a claim like that, though, I think of what has happened with fentanyl, where what was supposed to be strictly an end-stage cancer drug has been killing a ton of people (including Prince and Tom-fucking-Petty) because it wasn't profitable enough to the company to it limit to the people for whom it was intended.

      And absolutely - I am probably done with running regardless of the outcome of my current buffoonery.

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  6. The doctors on camels is pretty crazy, but it took humanity quite some years to realize how bad smoking was for your health. My father died of lung cancer, he should have known better. This at least, made me personally vow, to never touch the stuff. Even the vaping thing.

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    1. I was just in the back yard, smoking, and heard someone playing Hank Williams Jr.'s "Family Tradition" blaring from somewhere. And it's relevant because most of my dad's side of the family has died because of smoking, with some help from smoking. That oughta be enough to scare the crap out of anyone.

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  7. In High School I cycled between being a motocross racer, which is to say an athlete, and being a rock musician, which is to say a pot smoker.
    They had a thing in school back then, the president's physical fitness program, if I remember correctly, where all students in certain grades are tested in certain areas of physical exertion.
    One of those grades was grade 11, and one of those areas was measuring how far you can run in six minutes.
    Despite the obvious fact that I had been growing my hair, playing electric guitar, and smoking a boatload of Humboldt County (did I mention that I grew up in Humboldt County?) pot, the athlete in me was not gonna run less than a mile in six minutes.
    After I sort of staggered across the line on the track that marked a mile (four laps) I began to get, how to say this? High as fuck. Yes, high as fuck is what I got, as THC stores up in your fatty tissue, and an exertion that strays off into the "idiotic" zone can free up a bunch of it right at the same time when you are struggling to replace all of the depleted oxygen through smoke-compromised lungs... What I'm trying to say is that I staggered over to the tall grass at the far edge of the running track and passed out in said tall grass and woke back up only after it was fully dark and I had missed three of my classes and my dinner to boot.
    But I clocked a damn mile on JFK's fitness program six minute run fifteen years after JFK stopped caring about anyone's physical fitness.

    -Doug in Oakland

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    1. I don't think I knew that about THC getting stores up and released. I do know it seems to stay in the system as long as , well, anything - so long that I've always wrongly assumed most drugs stay in the system for a month (it's closer to days for almost everything else).

      I always kind of liked to believe that had a foot in different worlds. Not sure how it works out in the end, generally, but I wouldn't trade my interesting experiences for anything.

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  8. You need the right addiction. One that doesn't involve shin splints or liver failure.

    My I recommend writing a novel? It's sheer agony, but no worse than any other addiction.

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    1. It's harder to write with any depth and imagination when I'm in pain, but I'll get there.

      Now that I've written that sentence, it reminds me of some lyrics from a song where Nick Cave is berating himself for not writing when he's in much better condition than other famous writers were:

      "John Wilmot penned his poetry
      Riddled with the pox
      Nabokov wrote on index cards
      At a lectern, in his socks
      St. John of the Cross did his best stuff
      Imprisoned in a box
      And Johnny Thunders was half alive
      When he wrote Chinese Rocks
      Well, me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears."

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  9. Getting back to exercising after a long time away, and during a period when the brain is not all that happy with the world (or the rest of its body) is always tricky. Especially when we are getting older, and things we didn't even know we had start to hurt. But... it gets better... if we keep at it... As I am sure, you already know.

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    1. When this issue is resolved (and oh wow, I hope it gets resolved soon), I am going to reassess how I stay in shape. There's nothing wrong with getting older and switching hobbies.

      There are several people who stop by you (and you're high up on that list) who have had it much worse than me. I don't want to come across as whining, but it's nice to have people around who understand.

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  10. Ha, good to see in a comment above, a line from Pink Floyd relating to your situation. You know I believe there is hidden value in lyrics. I gave up cycling because of my sore back. (might be an excuse). I never enjoyed running. I find going for walks enjoyable. Even an easy hike can be fun. Pain is a message from your body - listen to it.

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    1. I spent a good chunk of my day today flat on my back, trying to find relevant songs on Apple Music. There were more than a few. It helps.

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  11. I think sometimes we forget that everything in balance is okay, so we try to do too much and end up falling way behind. Like, for me, sobriety is a casual thing, and exercise is a foreign friend. I get my work outs in yard stuff, in moving appliances around in the warehouse to make room for another shipment, and in walking the dogs when the weather is nice (which is now going on 4 months of being 'not nice').

    I quit smoking in October of 2007, and tried it once again in October of '11 and really didn't like the taste of it.

    Feel better quick my habitual friend. Run shorter runs, build up muscles and stuff. Stay off the smoke. That's all the advice I have for now, since that's all I know about you. Now you advise me. Something random is fine.

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    1. Balance sounds like good advice. I'm going to be okay. IT doesn't feel like it now, but I am confident that it's going to get better.

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  12. My back is fine - but I have a foot injury that makes running inadvisable, although I rather like it, but maybe I just like being outside and the simplicity of it. Mr used to run a lot but his knees died and he mourns them. Now he swims and cycles, and we lift weights on a Tuesday morning. So yes, it's okay for things to change and it's okay for things to be not okay because what kind of person lives without mistakes?
    Also we recently tried axe throwing and it is brilliant.
    Rest, then test.

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    1. Hi, Lisa! Switching hobbies is okay as we age. I don't think I'm up for axe throwing (at least not in my current condition), but hey, maybe I can ride a bike.

      One of these days, I'm going to be back to normal.

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  13. I'm really sorry that you hurt yourself Harry! I read your comment to Debra, that you've lost 20 pounds through this? Wow! Make sure to keep taking care of you and your cat :) Take it easy on the running!

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    1. Today is the best day I've had in about a month!

      Astro is fine, although he ate half a can of Ravioli that had been sitting out for a week. Thought he was going to die but he didn't even get sick.

      So things are looking up.

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  14. I believed those doctors back in the 50's, too. John effing WAYNE said "Be a man, like me, smoke Camel cigarettes!". Marion Morrison was also doing psa's for the American Cancer Society later in life.
    Me? I quit smoking in 2006, and quit drinking in 2010, but like John Prine says: "When I get to heaven ..... I'm gonna have a cocktail, Vodka and Ginger Ale. And I'm gonna smoke a cigarette nine miles long .....
    Wishing You The Best, Harry
    beej in CO

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