Growing up in Southern California

Origins of Addiction

Where do hidden flubug-like habits & formed addictions originate — From bowhip Mobile App

J. Adkins

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Origins of Addiction
Seems societies of year past were very moral & physically healthy, though lacked education, were low on leveled utility, and lived short lives. That post-world would have been a harsh, conflicting, and at times confusing. Many of our existing flubugs and addictions we live with today are grandfathered from that world including caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, drugs, and today sweeteners as well as behavioral dependencies.

Addictions (like flu bugs) can start at young ages. We can go our entire life without understanding our acquired ails. Behavioral habits that we catch are very often not of our own fault - similar to catching a flue.
Young people usually study psychology, not to be a psychologist but to better understand their parents as well as themselves. Here are a few stories from my childhood as illustrations.

I grew up youngest boy of 7 kids (each 1 yr apart in age). As a young child, sometimes when our dad came home from work, 7 wild kids rush, tackle and dogpiled him. Though he was cheered, I noticed he felt kind claustrophobic and frustrated. He was overwhelmed with challenges of work and stresses of life as well living with as his own obtained flubugs of life.

Growing up in California
At the start of kindergarten, I sat down with the teacher’s aid, she asked, "how high can you count to?" With great excitement I said that I could count to 100 and much more. She sort of rolled her eyes what looked like indifference, asked me to go ahead and start. Her lack of interest/belief dispirited my enthusiasm.

At kindergarten, two classmates pulled me over to defend one of them getting bullied by a 1st grader who would step over the line and pick on him.
One week later, after interrupting a kid being bullied for lunch money, our teacher walked outside, escorted me inside, then escorted me into the closet, closing the door turned told me "if you don't stop fighting with other kids I'll have the whole class line up and one by one punch you in the stomach as hard as they can."

In 2nd grade, our class took our first trip to read in the library, our teacher asked us to finish up and get in line; overly focused on what I was reading, I was late to line up and not lined up so well. Our Teacher grabbed me by the arm, then digging her nails in, lectured me about being late and sticking out of line.

Days later a classmate asked how I was doing, we could still see her nail marks on the inside of my arm. In each case above, it didn't cross my mind to mention it to my parents & siblings.

Again in 2nd grade, during recess, while playing football, (American soccer) I ran to the bathroom. On returning to the field, I noticed all the kids were running in a circle around one blond kid, hitting, kicking, and taunting him, tears were weld up in his eyes. Running into the circle, I stood in front of him.

The boy got up, though to my surprise, joined the other kids and now starting in on me. One kid can close enough I grabbed and took him down,squeezing him. To my surprise it was my good friend. He said, John, you're hurting me. I said you're hurting me too!

Seconds later the recess bell rang, I sprinted after the ringleader. He ran 20 yards to three recess monitors socializing together. He stood behind one woman who saw my eyes and asked, hey what's wrong? Then asked the boy hiding behind her, Chris what's wrong? He grinned and ran off to class. I said nothing and went to my class.

Looking back, though those recess monitors were not doing their job at that moment. Had I been taught that before walking in/out of (a room/building) to observe my surroundings and where I was headed, then on my way to the bathroom I would have noticed the recess monitors talking together, and on my way out I would have noticed the kids being mean, and could have pointed it out to those friendly recess monitors.

As important, if my good friend was behaving like the other kids, then, he may have approached me in part as a friend, I could have ran out of the pit with him, then tried to diffuse the group. 2nd: that ringleader was likely a good kid, perhaps as cool as my friend. Instead what ended up instead turning into team conflict through the remaining year as it didn't get resolved. Do government party conflicts start with topics like that? In reality they are simply two sides of the picture, though sometimes joining together on key topics like how England broke bands of lifetime slavery.

One other story:
Near that same age 2nd grade as I was saying goodbye to a friend, his Dad pulled up to call him home, he was late for supper, once my friend rounded the corner, his Dad from the car window said "Hey you, don't hang around with with my son, he's better then you, he's not like your kind". We stayed good friends, I never mention it.

A year later that friends Dad (a semi-pro golfer) left his my Mom for a younger girl at the office; their relationship didn't last, At a later time, my friends Mom met a cool person and re-married.

Several years later my own parents were struggling our dad having left; I roamed the streets. While walking home with a few friends one morning, a car approached us, the man rolled down his window to ask us if we had seen his daughter (who ran away from home). As he pulled away, he paused, to tell us "you guys stay away from her" she's not like you, she's better than you. One of the kids I was with said that he was City Mayor.

Those were a few experiences of youth. Seems those behaviors are from adults who earlier in life collected flubug like behavioral addictions, we struggle with these unseen injuries. Often we ourselves are unaware that we've caught flubugs that can develop into addictions. Here's a few stories.

As a child (7 ~ 8 yrs of age) we had a tether ball our dad put in the backyard. One summer day while playing alone I got the ball string stuck, all wound around the top of the pole. Climbing up the pole to unravel the ball I could felt the warm pole against my body, I hung there for a short minute with a warm kind of sensational feeling on my stomach muscles.

Some days later while looking for something to do, I remembered that experience and thought I'll climb the tether pole. Walking outside I reached the pole, the sun was warm as I climbed, however just then my mom opened the sliding glass door (likely prompted to look out the window) and said "Johnny, what are you doing?" I replied with my primary grade school voice, "ah nothing" and decided to climb back down. That could have developed into a habit. In years ahead it never crossed my mind to try it again.

A friend once mentioned about as a kid she had similar experience while in a warm bath, perhaps a similar age, yet on the other hand it's well known that baths help heal back injuries.

While growing up with limited edu, my favorite teacher was my 5th grade teacher Mr. Windle. He was super exited about education and liked eastern thought and meditation. To start class we would do some fun energy stretches, then he would start class with 1 chapter from The Chronicles of Narnia book (The lion, witch, and wardrobe).

A girl in class liked me, she was oldest of her brothers and sisters, outgoing, and pretty cool. She invited me over; I went to her house with my younger sister; both her parents worked. We all played a board game, after the game she said we should have sex, her younger siblings and my sister were shushed out of the room, though to my relief they were quick to find the outside window, so instead we just chatted.

As developing youth I was fortunate to have my school teacher quickly correct me for staring at her affectionately. I was fortunate to have people bump me in the right direction at times in life. Uncorrected or with approval, one will likely he,ad the wrong direction, developing unseen flubugs that later can turn into addictions. Mentioning all the above, I consider my own childhood and youth relatively very easy, compared with lives others live.

We as people are still learning about ourselves. When a person commits a crime, religion says that week person yielded to sin (they didn't honor it),  while Science claim is often that person had bad genes.  Now more then before, people believe that person collected bad data from somewhere, often starts like catching a flubug imagine that! Often starts not of ones own fault, and they didn't discover how to get ride of.

Regarding a person that molests a child, it is still so foreign to the society, that people can't respond apart from isolating from that person. While the act is very hurtful, yet to that person that committing the act, it may have simply started with climbing poles taking bathtubs and or combined with approval else assumed approval.

Mixing healthy activities with our unseen flubugs
Social activities are usually fun. Social activities combined with caffeine, alcohol, drugs, video games, gambling, are also often fun, without knowing these substances can become an unseen habit and later turn into addiction, not easy to shake off.
If people have good experience with something, they are likely to continue doing that without realizing it may be harmful. Having a negative experience does the opposite, one is more likely to not repeat.

Both unseen flubugs and addictions are debilitating and hold us back from awareness and completeness of life. Children and youth that grow up catching and living with addictions as adults will struggle with life; with these type of flubugs, when we are faced with misunderstanding, challenge, unkindness, perhaps cruelty from others, we are more likely to fall short, fail, quit, give up, and decline toward discouragement, missing out on the opportunities of our lifetime.

Like an unseen flu, unknowingly our body, mind, and vision is weaker; we may struggle to see opportunity in our moments of duress & challenge. In a weaker state, one can trip, fall down, and even succumb to unhappiness, resentment, as well as hatred. I believe most of us live a portion of our adult life (if not our entire life) like that, from simply having caught hidden flue's. It is likely these compounding flubugs were cause of our global pandemic.

Here is a simple method were you can easily discover uncover and replace any flubugs you may have.
NOTE:
We observe the impact people have on each other, and the impact we have on others and vis-versa, both the good and bad. By discovering our hidden flubugs we have the potential to find our better selves and restore ourself to a more complete life. If your reading this give it a try.

Great leaders and those of wealth are also not immune and catch flubugs, not easy to notice like bacteria. Children and youth can pick up habits (at a young age) and some even started by adults, that can later develop into addictions, both visible and unseen behaviors. Often within our life, we obtain inaccurate diagnoses for these flubugs.

For centuries it was not uncommon in Europe to give babies a bottle with a drop of brandy /alcohol for warm health.

Earlier in my life at (age of three) visiting my next door neighbor for the first time, (he was my age) in his garage he began to show me his motocross cycle and other stuff, from their refrigerator, he pulled out a can of Budweiser, cracked it open, and had a sip, that's what was cool. I said no thanks, and instead we just kind of hung out. My own leadership skills underdeveloped at that age being the youngest of several boys.

As a young teen/youth, at holidays, birthdays, and events adults are comfortable while first having told their children no to drinks, though after several drinks they are not as present and their children will have a sip (here and there) whether cracking open a drink for the parent, else finishing it off. I was fortunate my parents were taught alcohol was not for drinking. It is not very easy to see oneself as an addict, especially when combined with social activities.

There are English jokes about how people from England use Pubs (bars) as markers when giving directions to someone (there's nearly a Pub on every main street corner). In Europe, pubs were a common social hangout for nearly all occasions, including politics meetings.

Just as eating lots of salt was common (and was used to preserve meat). So alcohol was seen as a healthy regular social part of life. I heard many of England's pubs have been hauntingly empty. By the time it was proven that alcohol was an addiction, many older societies had already woven alcohol into their fabric.

In the 80's commercials appeared with a big movement, a startup called AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). Here below are many notable people that either fought to quit drinking or don't drink:

Presidents: Nelson Mandela, Cyril Ramaphosa, Xi Jinping, Yoshihide Suga, Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, Ronald Reagan.
Corporate: John D. Rockefeller, Howard Hughes, Steve Jobs, Mikhail Baryshnikov...

Artists: Eric Clapton, Jim Carrey, Shania Twain, Marshall Mathers (Eminem), Jennifer Lopez, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Tyra Banks, Colin Farrell, Eva Mendes, Naomi Campbell, Brad Pitt, Samuel L Jackson, Tom Cruise, Anthony Hopkins, Elton John, Curtis J Jackson (50 Cent), Brandon Flowers (The Killers). India Cinema: Priyanka Chopra, Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone...

Countries that Drink no Alcohol:
Bangladesh, Brunei, India (In Certain States), Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Pakistan, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, UAE Sharja, Yemen.

Mixing multiple addictions like alcohol, drugs, sex, prescription drugs, betting, porn, and behavior addictions, together, and together with unseen habits and required flubugs, can cause our heroes, e.g parents and others, to sometimes not be easy to understand, connect and communicate well with, and in society. Prominent people also catch and live with hidden flubugs. From a young persons view, society can appear a pretty ugly place, with little accurate support to count on.

Saying that, this information relates to our social ails with our world virus pandemic. Our misunderstandings of our neighbors, ourselves, competition, as well as judgments, and sometimes hatred, may compound our ability to interact with and see another person on a humane level.

Most believe making a difference starts with oneself, and right from wrong we mostly learn about as young as age five. Many leader of past including Ben Franklin had to overcome addictions of their era. In my own life I became aware that I'd caught an addiction (similar to how one might catch a flubug) it happened to my unbelief, while doing volunteer service in my early 20's and stayed with me for 15 years... Here's what I did to find my own way out.

If you would like to discover get rid of any potential flubugs you may have collected, give this 1 week challenge a try. Reviewing these discoveries will give you a boost of energy any you can find insight within your life.

Establishments
As adults we bring both our strengths and faults to establishments. Additionally competition, advertising and organizations sometimes suppress and hide truth (perhaps not with ill will) in return for benefits. As well in search for discovery, and businesses, we've creation processed food, sweeteners, caffeine products, alcohol, medication, sex, video games, gambling..

Like unseen flubugs, we bring our own habits into work establishments, while some companies unintentionally support these, and they are often mixed with social activities. Those flubugs can misdirect and also lag organizations, as well as age countries.

Sometimes we believe our way of life is the most correct. Groups and organizations may sometimes be guilty of this, including: Atheists, Agnostic, Religions: Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, as well as corporations, government parties, economic models.

Histories of great people are found in each culture and county. They all teach these similar beliefs regarding improving self and overcoming faults & addiction.