So let’s just get something out on the table: I have somewhat of an addictive personality. I can get slightly obsessed overly quick. Over the past few years, it’s ranged from many things – most of them not exactly what you’d call the best habits. There was a time I smoked. Not like a chimney, mind you, but I still did. I turned to it when I drank. I turned to it when I was stressed. Bored. When I wanted to fit in. Stand out. Trust me, I always found a reason. I am proud to say that is a part of my past for once and all now. It’s a hard habit to kick, and it’s hard to admit publicly to some people who I know will be disappointed. But, it’s over and the moral of telling that is to prove the point of my addictive personality.
When I stopped smoking prior to “once and for all,” I picked up shopping. Having lived by the mecca of shopping malls in King of Prussia, this was bad. I got myself and my best friend Chase Visa in a lot of trouble there. When I moved back to Pittsburgh, the shopping eased up a little, but my old habit came back. Once I kicked it again (“once and for all”), I found the best new addiction: running. Now, when stress hits me, I want to run, not smoke.
I’ll admit, in the middle of my training for the 5K, I took a drag of a friend’s cigarette (I don’t know what I was thinking) and I coughed like a 15-year-old trying it for the first time. Do you know what that means? VICTORY!
So, what other addictions has The Twenty-Fifth Year faced? Well, in the years leading up to this pivotal one, a big one was coffee. Starbucks coffee to be exact.
Now, I know this java isn’t the mecca of all that is good in coffee land. It’s a bit bitter. Burnt, some say. But it’s EVERYWHERE. It’s convenient. And it’s expensive. I know what you’re thinking, “Duh! It’s like 4 bucks!” Yeah, I know. Because I spent that every day for months on end in Philly. It became a part of my morning routine. Get off the train, grab a latte from the super cute barista who always remembered me and was so, so happy at 8 a.m. (probably an evil ploy to get 20-something female return customers like myself) and get on with my day. THEN one day I figured out I was giving 100 big ones to Starbucks a month! And that’s when I decided the addiction had to end. I invested in some store-bought creamer and called it a day.
My garbage can at work in Philly? Maybe..
When I started my current job, I started to get sucked back into the Starbucks Black Hole. I mean there’s one in the building I work in AND outside. Cmon, two within a few hundred yards Starbucks people? Did I mention I work in the BOONIES? We were always making SB runs, and then I looked at my checkbook and saw too many java deductions. Back to the home-brewed I go.
Now, I save Starbucks as a special occasion and usually get it once a week. Maybe when I am running late, or need a little perk, or when I look at my checkbook and feel I deserve a reward 
And now, with the holiday season around the corner, I know I will tempted by SB’s Peppermint Mocha – aka the stuff I live for the other 10 months of the year.
But never fear bank account – I have refuge!
It’s like the people at Coffee Mate heard my desperate cries of a need for intervention! When I saw this at my grocery store, I freaked. Like I-just-won-$5,000-a-week-for-life-on-this-scratch-off-lottery-ticket-at-the-dirty 7-Eleven-after-the-worst-day-of-my-life-freak-out. I immediately bought seventeen two. This is literally liquid crack. I checked it out and these suckers expire in March 2010 (gross?) so I plan to stock up in December. If $3 a bottle can save me $300 then I am all in.
What are your addictions? How did you stage an intervention with yourself? Do you love Starbucks too??
3 Comments
November 18, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Um……yeah Discover happens to be this girls best friend. Living by the outlets was no help either. I moved to Manayunk away from th outlets and KOP was my intervention. I just need to get my mom on board now because it’s been two months since my last shopping trip and my mom wants to go to the outlets with me Friday on my day off. I’m having a hard time finding the will power to say no or just shop for family for Christmas. We go on Black Friday every year but I don’t spend money on me on that day so it’s good. My other addiction going out to eat. This one I have yet to over power. It used to be occasional with friends for dinner, then i started working in Philly and it became lunch. Way too much money spent and calories consumed. I have been good about lunch in bringing it everyday to work or going home to eat it when I’m not in the office. The dinners I’m trying to overcome still. rI have cut back though…
November 19, 2009 at 9:43 am
Once you make the commitment, the hardest part is over. You can do it!!
October 29, 2009 at 11:14 am
You just put in words so many of the things I think! (I have a best friend Chase VISA, too and I live for Starbuck’s pumpkin spice latte the other 10 months of the year). Not doing so hot on the intervention to break up with Chase VISA- I’m addicted to cardigans. In every color. Year-round. I need help.