Living with an addictive personality....ish

I use the term addiction very loosely. In my childhood we were always encouraged to find moderation; but..... if we were going to be unbalanced in anything, than to let it be beneficial, healthful and productive. Believe it or not you can be addicted to all manner of things, whether good or bad, I have learned this from a dad who was once addicted to a myriad of things from alcohol to cigarettes and from cigarettes to chewing tobacco and chewing tobacco (that was decades ago) to coffee, then to monsters, then back to coffee, then to celery and now to cabbage.

I could list little things in life that are tiny vices (for those are all I have) like coffee or chocolate (both of great importance) but there are times I decide to purge everything, go off all sugar, drink nothing but green tea and be sure I am reliant on nothing that is food or drink related except where they provide me necessary sustenance. (I get weird sometimes).

My real vice goes way back to the little pleasure that was first awakened when I read “Nate the Great” as a youngster and was solidified with all of the Nancy Drew and Mandy books.  A love for detective novels. When my dad first let me stay up a bit later and watch Sherlock Holmes I was forever lost to him, the great sleuth of 221 B Baker street. I have read the complete works of Conan Doyle several times, have poured over the fifty plus Nero Wolf novels, have been impressed repeatedly with Agatha Christy, Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler, and Ellis Peters.   

I have read modern and period and old school mysteries and new. I might have a strange compulsion to read the end of a book, for which I am ridiculed by my siblings, not so with mysteries, I read them one page at a time till they are done. Though I go to bed at the same time as my husband, there have been occurrences, not infrequent, when his rhythmic breathing indicates sleep, that I have gone under the covers with a flashlight trying to finish a good old nail biter.

So when we speak of addictions and vices let us still learn from Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived when he says “the wise man will avoid all extremes” and make at least an effort to stay moderate except in those few things in life that require a more fanatical commitment, like serving God, being true to your spouse and a consistent, wonderful parent. We can always be crazy immoderate when it comes to goodness and love .....and detective fiction.

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