Day Nine: Anyone Can Empathize with That

I think I have a somewhat better appreciation for what it takes to overcome an addiction.  

Hunger is made up of two things: what happens to your body and what happens to your mind.  My body tells me that it needs sustenance, so I drink some water or a little bit of that wacky lemonade that has been keeping me alive.  My mind tells me that I am hungry and that I need to eat something.  Anything.  Something solid.  Something chewy.  Chewing.  I haven’t done that in days.  It’s interesting not having done that yet not truly experiencing starvation.  I am still alive, after all, and I am fully functional.  Well, mostly functional.  I haven’t had the courage to work out in nine days, and I didn’t want to push it this weekend and cut the grass.  Stuff like that I just avoid.  I’m done my normal dose of calories, you know.

The point is that my body gives the normal warning signs, and I take steps to fulfill the need.  What I am doing does the trick, so my body quiets down.  My mind, on the other hand, can keep its game up for quite some time after.  Eventually, it shuts up.  About twenty minutes later.  Hmm…Dr. Oz once talked about how part of the secret to controlling appetite is to stop eating before you are full, wait twenty minutes, then reassess how you feel.  Chances are, your hunger will have subsided.  You see, it apparently takes about twenty minutes for your brain to catch up with your stomach.  That’s precisely what I am experiencing.  It’s evidence that hunger is really the psychological response to a physical event.

It’s an interesting mechanism, and it has given me a little more empathy for those who are struggling to overcome addiction.  I understand a little better why a recovering alcoholic might want to avoid places where alcohol flows freely.  Try preparing a meal for someone while you are hungry and NOT taking a bite or two.  That’s not easy.  It may seem like a trivial thing to compare to the alcoholic’s demon, but, since I do not know that particular demon first hand, anything that can provide me with empathy brings me a little closer to understanding another form of human suffering.  And if I can understand the suffering of others, then I can love them with that much more of myself.

Any experience that can help grow a person’s power of empathy is a gift.  It’s a gift of love and compassion from something greater than any of us who suffer on this Earth.  While I am grateful that my suffering in this case is finite, a choice, and well-controlled, it still sucks.  It might be a small problem, but it’s my problem.  And our own problems are certainly the most salient problems in the world, thus get most of our attention, no?  

I think anyone can empathize with that.