Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040040
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEANNE JOHNSON DUDZIAK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
I'm a reading addict.
This might not appear much of a problem, but therein lies the deception of this insidious affliction. (See, I've tipped my hand already. Only a reading addict would use a phrase like "insidious affliction.")
We actually encourage our kids to read, without warning them of the dangers, complications and unfulfilled longings that lie ahead.
As a young reader I started out craving soft stuff like Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries. As soon as I read one book, I was compelled to complete every book in the series. Of course, by the time I got to the end of the series, there was always another new book added to the series. Already, one was too many and 100 were not enough. The compulsion had become an addiction.
Family and friends would see me curled up in the living-room lounge chair, oblivious to the general pandemonium of a blaring television, two brothers, two sisters and an evolving menagerie of pets. They'd just smile with amusement, label me a "bookworm" and stroke my ego by marveling at my selective powers of concentration.
Little did they know that I was not just reading those books, but inhaling, imbibing and ingesting them with all the insatiable relish of a addict who can never get enough.
Eventually, I moved on to harder stuff like Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare and the Bible. This was serious mainlining that only the hormonal jolt of puberty could temporarily halt.
Eventually, though, the hormones evened out and it was back to the books. Reading became a mode of transport for me, and the conclusion of each book left me feeling distracted and hollow until I could plug into my next fix.
During my college years, I was force-fed textbook material, but even that didn't dampen my desire. I took an almost perverse pleasure in the search for salient information, and thrilled with each previously forbidden desecration of a book with my plump, yellow highlighter.
For a while, everything was manageable, but absolutely nothing prepared me for how a reading addiction can interfere with the routine necessities of life, particularly motherhood.
As the pregnant, full-time employed mother of two boys who possess the damage capacity of Class A cyclones, keeping up with the routine necessities of life would be difficult enough. Add to that my reading addiction and sometimes it's completely hopeless.
"Mom, what's for dinner?"
(Me with my face buried in a book): "Oh, I don't know. Why don't you pour yourself a bowl of Cuckoo Berry Sugar Puffs. It looks really interesting. It's got this kind of fossilized, florescent green stuff mixed with nuclear nugget something-or-others. I think it glows in the dark."
Nutrition is not completely neglected but home-cooked meals are so rare in my house that my kids have the table manners of Big Foot.
When I'm reading, all else stops. It matters not that the dishes are piled in the sink, the kids are fighting again and the washing machine's "unbalanced" alarm is shrieking at megadecibels.
And for what? It's not whiskey I crave, but the elusive catharsis that always beckons from beyond the realm of "one more chapter."
For a while, I reined in my addiction by restricting myself to purely informational and inspirational reading. But informational reading is to reading addicts what methadone is to heroin addicts. It keeps us from going through withdrawal, but it never really satisfies our craving and doesn't exactly wean us from our true love of fiction.
One warning sign of a likely reading addict is the secret use of academic abbreviations such as "i.e." and "et al." Reading addicts recognize such abbreviations as possibly offensive affectations, so we avoid them publicly. But they tend to casually sneak out in memos and notes to ourselves. If you spot someone who uses such abbreviations, be on the alert.
A sure sign of reading addiction is anybody under the age of 70 who routinely reads the obituaries of people who aren't even famous. Such a person is seriously in need of help.
The problem is that there is no help. There are no reading-addict hotlines, no support groups. Instead, we're left to fend for ourselves in a temptation-filled world where newspapers and magazines are delivered to our door, and even grocery stores freely display the crack cocaine of reading addiction: paperbacks. Comparatively cheap and readily available, paperbacks are almost impossible to resist.
Our addiction is even encouraged by those government-run, tax-payer supported "shooting galleries" known as libraries.
I've finally come to the conclusion there's no hope for me. I've resigned myself to a life of neglected tasks, vicarious thrills and furtive indulgence.
I just hope that when I die, my nose is buried before the rest of me - in a good book, that is.
Jeanne Johnson Dudziak, a public information officer at Radford University. After writing this, her reading of "Mating" by Norman Rush was interrupted by the arrival of her new baby.
by CNB