Bad Wiring

It’s so strange that doing something you don’t want to do is often how your body improves itself. It’s as if we got our brain-wires crossed. Because the stuff that feels really good, and really easy, is almost always bad for you.

Like how, if I’m really hungry, and I eat a whole pizza (not that I do that, but I definitely do that), I put fat in my arteries, pad my waistline, and gain no muscle. Like, zero muscle. But I gain three thousand calories. And my body doesn’t need three thousand calories. It needs vegetables. And the problem with vegetables is, they taste like vegetables.

I know that eating vegetables will give my body the nutrients it needs to operate at max efficiency. In fact, vegetables provide your body with chemicals that actually promote a good mood. Eat a rutabaga, and you not only get physically healthy, you get mentally healthy.  Eat a whole pizza? You feel great for twenty minutes, and then you have regrets. It’s just not fair. But it’s the way things are. And the same principle applies to exercise. Exercise isn’t easy. But exercise makes vegetables look like hot garbage. Just take a look.

Exercise:

• Restores dopamine levels (which you need to feel motivation and rewards)
• Stimulates dopamine release (which makes you feel motivated and rewarded)
• Lowers cortisol (the “stress” hormone)
• Activates the parasympathetic nervous system (which promotes relaxation)
• Boosts endorphins (natural pain relief and euphoria)
• Improves sleep by regulating melatonin and gamma-aminobutyric acid (two key chemicals for prepping you for and keeping you in a deep sleep)
• Increases serotonin levels (the happiness molecule)

It’s as if exercise is the shortcut to getting the life you wish you had. But exercise hurts. It literally breaks apart your muscle tissue. Your heart rate skyrockets. The oxygen in your blood is sapped, so your lungs force you to breath more deeply, more frequently, until you can’t breathe normally. And when you’re done? Suddenly, putting a t-shirt on is nearly impossible because your shoulders are too stiff. Walking down a flight of stairs. Holy moly. Fire pain throughout your calves.

Fair / Not Fair

So if vegetables and exercise are two surefire ways to get the life we want, why don’t they taste and feel good? Why don’t vegetables taste like melted cheese, and why doesn’t running a mile feel like taking a nap? The best reason I can come up with is, we were simply not designed to live easily. Our top-notch form exists in the universe in which we are always challenging ourselves. Easy = atrophy. Challenging = hypertrophy.

The worst part of this is, when we consistently take the easy route, we feel sad. We feel lost, unmotivated, bored, and other bad things. A life of consistently easy, low resistance activity feels unfulfilling. How raw of a deal is that? Pizza is delicious, but a diet of pizza ultimately makes you fat and dead. A day full of naps doesn’t make you energized, it makes you sluggish and lonely. 1+ 1 = 5.

And for a lot of us, this is why we found solace in an addictive substance. We didn’t want to eat a rutabaga (who would?), and we couldn’t muster the gumption to run around the block three times. So we felt depressed or stressed or anxious otherwise mentally weak, and a drug stepped in to muzzle those bad feelings. This is the ultimate bad deal, since those bad feelings aren’t there to torture you, they’re there to wake you up to the fact that your behavior is unacceptable and your life is starting to suck.

That’s one of the salient points I’ve learned from working with so many people in Quit Kit. No one went looking for their addiction, but when they chanced upon their eventual drug of choice, it filled some hole inside of them. And it was easy. So easy. Just take a drink or a pill and life seemed better. All they had to do was use, and miraculously, things were just better.

Pleasure versus Pain.

Like we’ve established, we aren’t meant to get better by doing easy things. A drug is no exception. Unfortunately, since the initial experiences with a drug are so positive, the subconscious brain—which is a fastidious note taker and secretary of everything you do—files the drug under the “brings pleasure” or “avoids pain” column in its mental library. Once filed, the subconscious mind doesn’t go back and shred the file. In fact, the longer you use the drug, even at the expense of your physical and mental well-being, the subconscious hard wires new neural pathways to make it, you guessed it, easier, to keep taking the drug. It’s the neuroscience of habit-building (see also: neuroplasticity).

Very basically, a new activity requires relatively immense mental energy to sus out: is it beneficial or harmful? How do we do it? What does it make me feel? Is it complicated or simple to perform? But the subconscious can’t afford to spend that kind of mental energy answering these questions again and again. So, the subconscious takes notes on the first few experiences, declares the activity pleasureful or painful, and then literally begins to fashion new neural tissue that allows you to engage in that activity with less and less mental energy. The longer you do the activity, the more that pathway is reinforced. You get used to doing it without “thinking” about it. It’s how we daydream while driving. We’re so used to the activity that we don’t even think about it. We just do it (some better than others).

What does this have to do with vegetables and exercise? Well, firstly, when you quit a drug after chronic abuse, your brain (and body) is dearly in need of repair. And there are some very real, well-studied methods for repairing things quickly. One is diet, and another is physical activity. It all comes down to chemistry. While in withdrawals, your neurochemistry is as balanced as David and Goliath on a seesaw. Neurotransmitters that govern your energy and mood (dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, serotonin, glutamate, cortisol) are poorly regulated. Imagine opening a circuit panel and seeing a bunch of wires poking out and about and flashing dangerously. That’s your brain—on drugs. This chemical imbalance is what makes life so unbearable when in withdrawals. Anyone who’s been in withdrawals knows what I mean. It’s the worst feeling in the world. A complete loss of mental control. An utter inability to be “normal” in the world.

Vegetables and exercise are like the nuts and bolts that the brain needs to complete repairs on this broken circuitry. Vegetables and exercise kick Goliath off the see-saw and put David’s twin brother (why not) in his place. The problem is, vegetables still taste like vegetables, and exercise still hurts. And when you’re withdrawing, all you want to do is lessen your pain, not increase it—even though you know full well that eating a healthy diet and getting the blood flowing will ultimately make you feel better.

I made the Quit Kit because I knew that much of the benefit I’d get from a healthy diet could be packaged into a set of capsules. It would be “easy” to take a few capsules filled with healthy ingredients. But I also knew that Quit Kit couldn’t solve my addiction to kratom. Quitting an addiction requires an acceptance of the fact that, long term, one must embrace resistance, not avoid it.

Rutabagas will always be gross. Exercise will never be comfortable. I don’t have any inspirational cliché to attach to that. It’s just true. But I also know that giving into “easy” is a quick way to point me towards mental anguish. That part is tough to deal with. I’m not special. I don’t have some unique ability to keep focused or be mentally tough. I desperately wish I did. But even that line of thinking is proof that I’m still looking for “easy.”

Choosing Resistance

Addictive drugs hoodwink us into thinking that we can solve our unhappiness without overcoming resistance. And even after quitting the drug and breaking the habit, these drugs leave a sort of mental residue that encourages us to look for “easy.” But on the flipside, it’s a reminder that death + destruction is the final destination for easy.

One of my favorite quotes is by Tennessee Williams, from a piece he wrote about the unhappiness he felt after having achieved fame and fortune. He wrote that “security is a kind of death.” Man. That is the truth. Easy is the end of growth. A lack of growth breeds unhappiness. Unhappiness is fertile ground for addiction. But addiction is the ultimate multiplier of unhappiness. Yet again, it seems like 1 + 1 = 5. Maybe that’s the math of an unfulfilled life.

Resistance will never feel good, but easy will ruin your life. That’s why we have to choose resistance. Fulfillment and resistance are two sides of the same coin.