quote:

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I tried to quit smoking and found that the years of polluting my brain with nicotine meant that I couldn't string a reasonable sentence together without filling my lungs with smoke. I went three months without a drag, took a good look at the crap I was writing and lit up.

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He died two weeks after quadruple bypass surgery.

How to write and stay healthy... a puzzle?

Slightly Off-Topic:

*I have very broad definitions of addiction, which include overeating, inauthentic relationships, and sleep deprivation as well as alcohol, nicotine, and drugs that are fun enough to be used in spite of negative consequences.

I used to own a game shop where we had themed rooms kids could rent out per hour to play their games, (and a database of other kids who played the same games and we'd organise groups for them, ) and was amazed at how much jolt® cola they bought coupled with the requests for us to stay open until 3am. Of course these two things are not unrelated.

POOKA: By the above definition is it possible that some forms of OCD a can be a type of addiction to almost fetish-like behaviours? I ask because a lot of those kids that came into the shop were incredibly bright but had weird little habits. The worst were like little ritualistic movement like twiddling their hair and then blowing on their fingers, over and over again and he would get really mad if you mentioned it.

BTW: My wife is Samoan, her dad was telling me a long time ago that the stingray is one of the things they fear the most when out in the water. Very dangerous, according to him.

On topic:
It is easy to think that you owe your creativity to something external to yourself, substances or whatever. I have always been concerned that my work involves sitting in front of this blasted monitor and so too does my writing. Both require lots of time and I constantly worry about my health. Chasing kids and renovating the house doesn't seem to shift plaque in your arteries the way swimming or cycling etc does

PS: Will mis Colin Thiele too, Storm Boy was the first time (as a kid) I ever read a book first and waited desperately for the movie.

Being attacked while diving is rare, but considerably more likely to be fatal.

I think that OCD behaviors are a little different. While any OCD behavior obviously fits the first (compulsive) and fourth (obsessive) criteria, very few of them will exhibit withdrawal or tolerance. If an OCD person isn't under stress, the compulsions will ease and there is no negative effect experienced from reduction of the behavior. You can even forcefully interrupt any given compulsive behavior and it will simply be replaced with something else. But once a compulsive routine is established, it doesn't usually become more extreme or progress.

OCD: It's been awhile but wasn't one of OSC's books dealing with OCD; tracing the wood grain on a floor. Am I hallucinating that? Clue me, somebody.

Certainly, the hair twiddling was odd, what I was commenting on was kids who had a fetishisistic belief that they could control the roll of a dice etc by doing weird things, like twiddling the hair and blowing on the fingers or saying a cerain word under their breath, or rolling particular coloured dice. They seem to think their behaviour could change something that was otherwise out of their control. Bit like a magic ritual or superstitious thinking.

Can superstitions etc be construed as OCD or addictions?
Can a bad habit be destructive and compulsive and be more like OCD than an addiction?

All questions here, no answers.

quote:

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But experts stressed that stingrays were not usually vicious and rarely attacked and killed humans, unlike the range of deadly creatures Irwin had confronted in the past.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060904/ts_afp/australiapeopleirwinwildlife_060904125339

I guess you'd call this an OSC OCD.

. . .(For David Gemmell)

I know I'm banging on a bit but I'm really interested in the conection between, obsessive behaviour and the a 'magic' mentality. or If I do A (controllable behaviour) then I can make B (uncontrollable event) occur — or not occur as the case may be.

That last paragraph make any sense? I'm going to start researching magical mentality and see what i can find. *hoptoad salutes and runs off into the trenches*

Do you mean literally what you meant? That B is uncontrollable, and the _mentality_ deceives someone into thinking that they have control? Or do you mean that B _seems_ like it shouldn't be controllable in that way, and the mentality perceives something deeper that allows it to be controlled after all?

If some uncontrollable event the person has been trying to forestall through obsessive, ritualised behaviour occurs, what mechanisms allow that person to maintain their belief in the ritual behaviour? For instance: "I must have done something wrong. That's why the 'event' occurred." In this case the failure of the ritual actually confirms the belief in it. It works if it works and if it doesn't work I'll have to try harder and be more precise next time. This places the 'event' squarely back in the 'controllable' basket.

I'm seeing a sort of self-induced, psychological misdirection allowing the person to suspend their suspicion that the event is truly uncontrollable in the first place and instead focus on their own 'failure' in the ritual methods.

According to the OC foundation, engaging in the compulsions supposedly alleviates the obsessions, but I have to wonder about this. If there were something I could have been doing to avoid my obsessions over the years, I would have done it. Now I have to disengage from the psychological tract when I recognize certain patterns and tell myself "these are not real thoughts. These are symptoms of Stress and poor diet.

My health worries me, spending too long at the keyboard.
I'd better dust off and fix-up my bike.