Politics! Religion! Twitter! Things you shouldn’t talk about.

• After watching the second Republican Presidential Candidates debate last week, I think we can definitely rule out Newt Gingrich, Tom Pawlenty (after rather high expectations, he turned out to be a hesitant mess), Herman Cain, Ron Paul, and Rick Buttsex Santorum. Mitt Romney was assured and, dare I say it, Presidential looking — because appearance and looks are almost everything when it comes to the Presidency (although I can’t really explain Richard Nixon). But then he goes and ruins it… The surprise, for me at least, was Michele Bachmann: she didn’t sound the conspiracy-driven crackpot that she usually is… but days later, she’s returned to her old self and all is right in the world again.
• I’ve been staying up late (well, later than usual) in recent weeks. I started watching Big Love from the first season and am currently into the fourth season. I realise now that initially I was unconsciously prepared to dislike the Henrickson family for their Independent Mormon fundamentalists beliefs (or, to put a better way, not their beliefs but for being so foolish to believe such things), which includes the belief of plural marriage (polygamy). I found it reprehensible; now I find it incomprehensible but intriguing and I’ve been a little addicted to reading about personal experiences, like this one. Still don’t think it’s the best lifestyle, like open relationships — but that’s just me. Nevertheless, I could totally dig the idea of polyandry. Oh yeah.
• After quitting Twitter (yes, again) over a month ago, I feel FREE! It’s good to get away from the pettiness, the gossiping, the backstabbing, the lies, and the general bullshit that gets filtered through. People are weird: warm and friendly one minute, cold and aloof the next, and you’re left wondering what the fuck happened, what did you do/didn’t do, say/didn’t say. Of particular distaste is finding out that people were bitching about you – even though they don’t know you, never met you, let alone spoken to you. It’s a strange thing that happened to not just me, but others as well. Like I said, people are weird.

On a different tangent, I know some tweeps would argue that Twitter is a great source of comfort for battling loneliness and depression. I don’t disagree, I found sharing common life stressors with others made me feel less alone (although I always prefer actual human contact, face to face communication). That’s good.

But on the other hand, over and over and over, I would see people getting too attached to the online identities; pre-existing depression and anxiety would increase because of an imagined slight because tone and context is lost in 140 characters. People who flirt with others and were told to cease flirting felt rejected and despondent. And don’t get me started when love affairs go sour… Oh, there were so many scenarios, and I admit that on occasion I felt anxious, that whole “Oh my god, I went too far and now they don’t like me because they’re not replying to me!” or “Was that passive-aggressive tweet about me?” My point is, I often thought quietly to myself, “There are some people who shouldn’t be on Twitter… they’re not coping with it well.” It is a concern and I’d be interested to hear what others have to say.

But those aren’t the reasons I quit Twitter. It was simply because I was getting bored and also noticing my attention and concentration spans had gone to shit. A few years ago, Nicholas Carr, referring to Google in particular but which could be applied to Twitter,  wrote:

I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

Bingo. That was exactly what I was experiencing. When studying, I couldn’t concentrate for any longer than 10 minutes before I wanted to “see what was happening on Twitter”. Facebook never bothered me the same way (and someone asked me why. I don’t know why, it just never did). Twitter, I realised, had become an addiction of sorts. I would try shutting down the tab and moving myself to another room, but that was difficult as much of my study is online. When I was on Twitter, I’d be chasing links: listening to YouTube clips that people tweeted, reading links that they posted (even when it wasn’t really a topic I had any particular interest in), following particular hashtag conversations, following other general conversations, and so on.

As Carr notes, this is a widespread phenomenon; many others are experiencing or have experienced this alteration in mental habits. The realisation that I needed to completely quit — since I was incapable of simply shutting down TweetDeck or the tab in which Twitter was open — was the night before an essay was due. Instead, I spent 3 hours following the Marrickville Council debate over the Israeli boycott controversy.

THREE FUCKING HOURS! AND I HAD AN ESSAY DUE THE NEXT DAY! As it was, after the council voted to drop the boycott, the last thing I felt like doing, unsurprisingly, was my essay. I went to bed instead, feeling pissed off and beginning to think it was time to call it a day on Twitter.

So I did.

And that’s why I quit Twitter.

But wait, there’s more.

After I deleted my Twitter account, breaking the automatic response to “see what was happening” was strange and somewhat difficult, but gradually I realised I was starting to read articles and journals for research better — in the sense that I was concentrating easier and without distraction. Even deep thinking about my essays improved, instead of half-arsed thoughts and ideas that I then had to flesh out. Best of all, I’m reading books again. I’ve missed reading the most and it’s been wonderful to sit and read without a wandering mind for a couple of hours at a time.

Meanwhile, Professor David Chalmers, director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University, recently argued that Google was “actually making us smarter” and “turning us into superheroes of the mind”. I don’t disagree that the internet in general has improved our knowledge. I’ve learnt a lot of things online — but I still wonder how much trivia that I’ve read that I’ve retained. Things come at such speed, have I had the time to absorb that knowledge before I move onto the next piece of information or trivia? Still open to debate (with myself). How about you?

On a final note about Twitter: when I started contacting a few people who I wanted to keep in touch with about my intention to quit and explained briefly why, I was surprised at how often they understood, for they also found they were struggling with the same issue of concentration and attention, to various extents. All along I thought it was just me, thinking I didn’t have enough willpower or focus or some such to concentrate on my studies when required.

• This post took a week to write. What was that about improved concentration and attention spans?

A guest post

During the week, a friend emailed me to let me know that she’s there for me and is thinking of me. I was very touched, of course. Somewhere during our email exchanges, it came out that she’s been struggling with the same issues with alcohol, and after thinking about her circumstances and being able to empathsise, I offered her to write it all down and guest post here. Writing is great therapy and I know it’s helped her immensely for she has said so.

Her identity will remain anonymous. Here she is.

Last Saturday morning, on a long car trip with an aching head, I decided to quit drinking.

I’d ended the night before crying, face down on the floor. So drunk I couldn’t get up and somehow ended up on the phone to my partner, who was an hour away, begging him to help me.

I decided the next morning to help myself.

I’ve never “craved” alcohol, so I never considered I might have a problem with it. I could go weeks without a drink, and I’d cut down the frequency I’d been drinking in the last few years from several times a week to once a week. I’d given up smoking, and given up most of my other vices. It seemed like I had the addiction thing under control.

Drinking was the one constant. Not that I constantly drank, but when I did drink, I would drink fast. Hard. And the amount I would consume before I finished was getting more and more. Two and a half bottles of wine on a weeknight for no reason? Thanks very much! Bottle upon bottle of champagne at a wedding? Don’t mind if I do! It wasn’t every night, or even every week, but whenever it was, it was done to excess.

But last Saturday morning, something in me snapped. I realised that I’d gone from being an occasional binge drinker – someone who’d always had a problem saying “no” to the next drink – to someone who literally had no ability to stop. No way to monitor myself once I was slightly tipsy. No off-switch, no inhibitions.

In short, I had no control. And I wonder if I ever did.

It scared me. I was tired. Not just tired from lack of sleep, but tired of worrying about what I had gotten up to the night before. Who had I cornered and not let get away with my incessant prattling? Had I done anything I shouldn’t have? Said something I shouldn’t have said?

Mostly, I could remember.

Sometimes I wish I couldn’t

I think on some level, it might have been a problem for a long time, but I’ve controlled it  – with varying success –  over the years, or maybe just haven’t been comfortable enough to examine my behaviour in relation to alcohol up until now. There’ve been times it’s gotten away from me, and times where I’ve had a very firm grip on it, but it always comes back to times where I felt like I didn’t have control over it.

For me, I think it’s a two-fold problem. My metabolism is such that I can drink hideous amounts and it takes a long time to hit me – all at once. Also, I don’t think that I’ve had a lot of exposure to environments that frowned upon heavy drinking. I’ve spent time in sports that encouraged it, and in social groups that did the same. My father is a light drinker, and frowns upon losing control, but my mother is a heavy drinker and it runs in her side of the family.

I wish I’d realised all of this sooner. I wish I’d looked at this pattern of behaviour seriously, and contemplated what it meant to keep drinking in this way.

I don’t think I was ready before. I do know that I’m ready to try now. And if I find it hard to give up something I know is doing me nothing but harm, then I know there may be a deeper problem than I think there is.

I think to some degree I have an addictive personality, but to a larger degree it may be a form of escapism that I used to engage in – smoking, casual sex, whatever – that I no longer do. Alcohol was probably one of the things I should have given up as well but thought was more “harmless”. I didn’t take my binge-drinking as seriously as I should have. Now I have nothing to hide behind, and it is something I HAVE to address.

My biggest fear in all of this is the reaction of others. My partner is relieved. Some will be surprised, some will think me weak because I couldn’t control my drinking. Others will wonder why I’m doing this and think I don’t need to, that perhaps I’m being melodramatic.

I feel good about my decision. It’s been over a week without alcohol, and I’ve thought more about NOT drinking than I’ve thought about having a drink. Most of all, I know tomorrow I’m going to wake up without a hangover, without fear and without the sense of shame that accompanied my drinking.

But for now, I’m sure I’ve made the right decision.