[AKN #112] You Over Consume Because You Are Avoiding Your Emotions

LAUGH: British People-Ants Venn Diagram, LOVE: Visualization Of How Many People Have Ever Lived

Sep 21

Sup homies?

If you open LinkedIn right now, you are guaranteed to see a post from an acquaintance you met at a 2013 conference hosted at a Holiday Inn Express.

Without fail, that person will be painting your timeline with gibberish about how excited they are to ✨ start their new adventure ✨

And let me tell you, EVERYTHING now a days is an “adventure.”

Got a new job? What a crazy adventure you are about to embark on by signing into a new laptop from your home office.

Bought a house? Definitely taking some adventures to Home Depot.

Gave birth to the ugliest child I have ever seen? Going to be an adventure navigating childhood given societal beauty standards!

But seriously, these are not adventures!

Honestly, the time me and this guy spent at the Holiday Inn Express was more of an “adventure” than him making a lateral move to a slightly different payment processing company.

Like we had to rough it through that miserable hotel breakfast with the dry eggs and cardboard pancakes. I know they say Motel 6 leaves the light on, but I’m telling you the people at Holiday Inn Express are leaving the hot lamp on the tray of eggs all night long.

Thankfully they have that lukewarm cup of Dannon yogurt to wash down your adventure.

People used to go on actual adventures.

I wonder how they talked about it. Like do you think Clark of Lewis and Clark fame described what he was doing with the same language we describe mundane life changes?

“I’m so privileged and honored to be embarking on my next adventure of exploring the Louisiana Purchase with Lew! Big thank you to my mentor Thomas Jefferson for commissioning the expedition.”

I doubt it.

Instead Lewis and Clark explored both the boundaries of the United States and one another’s sexuality and said nothing.

Because back then men kept shit to themselves.

We need to stop this trend of toxic femininity now and go back to bottling up all of our feelings.

Shit is getting absurd. Which leads me to today’s post.

On to the newsletter!

LIVE: You Over Consume Because You Are Avoiding Your Emotions

A hand crafted, artisanal post by me

I like to experiment with restriction.

For example, in the last 5 years, I have:

Removed caffeine from my life for 30 days
Removed social media from my life for 35 days
Removed alcohol from my life for 40 days

Why?

Two reasons.

One, I like proving to myself that I can do it.

Two, whenever I enter these experiments, I am hoping to achieve some outcome.

Usually I read a book or blog post about how eliminating X from my life could be the ONE thing I NEED to feel AMAZING.

And I — like the good American I am — fall hook, line, and sinker for marketing that suggests I simply needed to know one little trick to become the best version of myself.

While there is something appealing to “remove X for 30 days and at the end you will no longer be fat/depressed/anxious/sad/lonely/etc…”, the truth is the promised result never stuck.

Instead, what I learned from performing all these feats of willpower is my problem was not the things I was consuming, but rather the reason I was compelled to consume them.

Take alcohol.

Online wellness gurus promised me that my anxiety would be a thing of the past if I just quit alcohol.

“Simply start with a 30-day no alcohol experiment and you will see!”

Oh I saw. And let me tell you, that promise is wrong.

Like sure, I wasn’t suffering from “hangxiety” the day after drinking anymore. But now my anxiety was 10x what it was throughout the rest of the day.

Why?

Because drinking was not the source of my anxiety, it was my solution.

As was EVERY other habit.

I was eating junk food BECAUSE I was anxious.

I was stuck in a vortex of social media consumption BECAUSE I was anxious.

All of these habits would — for the brief moment I was consuming them — elevate me to a nirvana where I was separated from the uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and it felt GREAT.

I could forget about the fact that I hated my job as I watched some bikini clad model walk the beaches of the Maldives.

I could forget the loneliness I felt as I raced to finish a 6 pack of Hazy IPAs in a race I started with myself.

And in the event I got around to experimenting with eliminating my known anxiety crutch, you know what I did?

I DEVELOPED A NEW HABIT!

When I experimented with not drinking alcohol, I started working later during the week and more on the weekends.

When I experimented with not drinking caffeine, I started exercising more than Richard Simmons in the weeks leading up to Pride month.

When I experimented with not using social media, I…started this newsletter lol.

Sure. Those are “healthy” addictions. But still addictions.

Literally my entire life can be thought of as creative ways to separate myself from the feelings of anxiety/depression/loneliness.

It is like Gabor Maté, a renowned addiction expert, says:

Addiction begins with solving a problem, and the problem is that of human pain, emotional pain. The first question is not why the addiction; it’s why the pain?

Worded differently, the question “why do I drink/eat sugar/do drugs/etc?” is a fucking stupid question.

You do those things because it feels AMAZING.

Like are you kidding me? Have you ever drank a beer or eaten a brownie?

Instant euphoria. If we put your brain under a scanner during that drink or bite, your pleasure center would be lighting up like a Christmas tree.

If you are feeling sad, is there actually any better short term solution?

Of course not. That’s why you do it.

That’s what I learned through my experiments with restriction.

I learned I can’t solve my over consumption problem with restriction. Instead I need to actually do some investigating into why I am consuming.

What am I trying to avoid?

Because if you want to get off the endless hamster wheel of thinking “oh this next fad diet/digital fast/New Years Resolution will solve my problem”, then you need to realize that it starts with actually acknowledging the emotion you are feeling.

Or you can go on another juice cleanse.

Because I bet this one will be THE ONE that fixes it.