Get Busy Livin’ or Get Busy Dyin’

A coworker twice my age confided something in me recently about a loved one of his who is going through the proverbial ringer of alcoholism and some of its subsequent mental attacks of anxiety and depression. He asked me how it was that I was able to quit drinking on my own. The first thing that came to mind was a combination of routine and staying busy. They say idle hands are the devil’s workshop or play pen (some shit like that), and that’s especially true with any type of substance abuse or addiction. If I wasn’t keeping my mind occupied in some way, shape, or form, I was probably going to take a walk down the road to the liquor store, or up the street to the bar. And for me to keep busy that meant a lot of exercise, reading, writing, and for a while cooking whenever I wasn’t at work.

The biggest part of that is exercise. When you replace bad habits with the habit of working out your body for an extended period of time per day, not only are you enhancing your mind and body, but by the time you’re done working out you don’t exactly have the energy or desire to get fucked up. In the immediate of my lifestyle change I had two different women in my life trying to tell me that I had a problem. My sister was calling me an exercise-aholic, and the woman I was seeing at the time was comparing my workout schedule of running or going to the gym in the morning, followed by yoga workouts I found on YouTube, and boxing once or twice a day in the afternoons/early evenings, to anorexia. My response to that was “this is a problem? No, me drinking a liter of booze a day was a problem. Me smoking weed from the time I woke up to the time I fell asleep was a problem. Having the munchies for 18 hours a day and eating in abundance from the hours of 4 to 7 in the morning is a problem. Me eating pills like candy, that was a problem. But me exercising until I can’t go any longer is far from a problem.”

I read an article once, and forgive me it was a long time ago so I can’t recall its title or author or what it said verbatim, but it was about the importance of exercise and how it’s the one thing that every single human being needs to do on a regular basis. For one, it’s measurable. Exercise is one of few things in this world that can constantly be measured and monitored, especially given the times and advents of things like the FitBit and apps that track your exercise statistics. You can do 25 push-ups and run 3.3 miles one day and when you see those numbers today, you’re almost guaranteed to want to outdo them tomorrow. And then once you begin to see results the aftermath becomes intoxicating and you only want to look and feel better tomorrow than you did today. But most importantly, for me at least, the best part of exercise doesn’t stem from the physical results, but rather the mental aspects stemming from the release of endorphins.

I feel better mentally and emotionally after a solid run than I do physically.

The last time I sparred in the boxing ring, I went five rounds with a heavyweight who easily outweighed me by 70-80 pounds. He went about his business like a total professional and didn’t kill me although he could’ve had he wanted to. Nonetheless, he beat my ass. He cut the size of the ring so that I was backed into corners and I was on the ropes for most of the five rounds. At one point I took a right hook to the rib cage and I literally felt my ribs slide inside my hip bone. In that very moment I realized just how resilient (and flexible) the human body can be. When all was said and done I walked out of the building exhausted and shaking a little bit, but with the hugest smile on my face. My brain felt content with what had just transpired and despite the fact that every bit of me hurt within 24 hours, I smiled that way for at least 48 hours.

See when I first quit drinking it was quite difficult for me to fall asleep. I remember one night in particular where I took 100 milligrams of Unisom tablets and still didn’t sleep for a second. When you go from drinking (and eating) yourself to sleep just about every night for an extended period of time, to not doing that, there’s a lot that needs to happen as far as physiological changes in order to reacclimate yourself to a more (for lack of a better word) normal lifestyle. It took me a few months, but eventually I was able to fix the problem. I replaced drinking myself to sleep with exercise, writing, and an app on my phone I found called Daily POP Crossword Puzzles. I was exhausting my body by day, mind by night.

The truth is that every human being enjoys the act of learning. I didn’t entirely realize this until I was a few years removed from formal education, but everyone loves to learn. The key is finding things that pique your interest so that learning is fun and doesn’t feel much like a chore. Reading is the same way. Every human enjoys the act of reading, they just need to find a book, story, or topic that interests them enough that they feel moreso entertained than educated or just keeping their mind occupied.

Sidebar: Perhaps I’m talking out of my ass here when I say this, but I don’t think that every child diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder is properly diagnosed. I believe that a lot of these kids aren’t actually afflicted with anything, but rather the shit they’re learning in school at the age of seven is just boring. 

Again, it’s whatever works for you, and you only, that’s going to help you kick a bad habit, or substance abuse issue, or addiction. For me it’s less about routine and more about staying busy via an appetite for life. A wise woman once told me “it takes more than 90 days to make it 90 days,” in regards to sobriety. And I can’t tell you how many times I would make it a week without a drink and then allow my mind to wander so far that it led me to the liquor store with the thought process of “Gee ya know, 90 days is a long ways from today. It’s time to hook up with Jose Cuervo again.”

But my path to changing my lifestyle began with a constant appetite for life and a desire to stay busy as often as possible. And of course a mantra from my favorite film of all-time, The Shawshank Redemption, “get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.”

The next 15 songs in the queue on my “Bipolar Time Machine” playlist on Spotify:

1. “Lay it Down” – Ratt
2. “Survivor” – Joe Budden
3. “Straight Up” – Paula Abdul
4. “Gold on the Ceiling” – The Black Keys
5. “Death Comes Callin'” – Everlast
6. “Gimme All Your Lovin'” – ZZ Top
7. “Sugar Daddy” – Thompson Twins
8. “I Would Die 4 U” – Prince
9. “Them Bones” – Alice in Chains
10. “Through the Wire” – Joe Budden
11. “I Want Your Sex” – George Michael
12. “I’m Wit Whateva” – Notorious B.I.G. (feat. Lil Wayne, Jim Jones, and Juelz Santana)
13. “Just Like Honey” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
14. “My Time” – Fabolous
15. “Pat Earrings” – CASISDEAD