Day 2: -1 snoozes

Why, cruel universe, why?

Here's a twist of irony only Alanis could dream up: after setting up the automatic coffee maker right next to my bed, and dangling my alarm clock 6 feet in the air off a hook, and going to bed at midnight, I snapped wide awake 10 minutes BEFORE my alarm was supposed to go off. The coffee hadn't even begun to brew... on the one hand, yay because hey I'm awake. On the other hand, fuck. Tomorrow will be different story, there's no way this can happen two days in a row. I shall be redeemed in my quest to conquer this snooze button addiction.

Let's rap about addiction - don't worry, it's not that feel-good "friends of Bill W." stuff, I'll keep it simple.

At it's¹ its most basic level, addiction is when people are hooked on something that feels really really good, and they just can't get enough. For me, it's the feeling of collapsing back into bed and letting myself instantly drift back into la-la land. It goes deep too, to an almost subconscious level. It's not like I have a voice in my head saying "Come on, go back to bed, you can get dressed real fast and eat on the road". Most times, I don't even realize I'm doing it, until it's literally too late.

Every morning I repeat the same vicious cycle of getting high on going back to sleep, and then coming down by waking up for good. And there's always that sense of remorse - "fuck, I slept in 'til 8:45 today, Jesus Christ I have 20 minutes to make coffee, eat, shit and leave - fuck my life". It's no different than the "I'll never drink again" mantra we all go through on Saturday mornings, only to hit the bottle again on Saturday night.

About two years ago, I quit smoking - I went from two packs a day to zero, cold turkey with no help from gum or patches or anti-depressants. Just sheer will-power. I've always felt a duality to my personality: the voice that knows what's best for me, and the voice that keeps trying to lead me down a path of self-destruction. You can liken it to the angel and devil on your shoulder, that's the easiest way to understand it.

In my best moments of clarity, the angel² will come to a firm decision about something that needs to be done, and if I'm really determined, then the voice of the devil just never gets loud enough to sway me from what I'm supposed to do. The devil voice is always there, mind you - I'd KILL for a cigarette right now - but I'm just not allowed, period - there's no choice in the matter. The same common sense that keeps me from punching old people that walk too slow also keeps me from sticking another cigarette in my mouth.

On the odd occasions where the devil wins, the angel is still there with his little pipsqueak voice, I just end up ignoring him. But when I hit my snooze button for two solid hours every morning, that angel is fast asleep, out like a light, down for the count. I don't even have the option of trying to choose in the mornings. That's what's made this struggle so hard in the past - every single shred of common sense I have is MIA when the first alarm goes off, so the damn devil wins every time.

It would be a neat twist if the angel finally slaughtered the devil, allowing me to totally 100% succeed on the first day of my quest. That'd be a neat explanation for today's freak early wake-up - I've finally REALLY realized I need to wake up early in the mornings, and am just going to go ahead and do it.

But in the event that I'm either wrong or have just undone the whole thing by jinxing it, I predict 8 snoozes for tomorrow morning.




1. TenVolt totally called me on an unfortunatuitous grammatiquational grammatiquatical mishap.

2. To be clear, I'm not religious and I don't actually have/imagine an angel and a devil talking to me. It's just the easiest way to explain this concept - the names "the inner voice that knows what's good for me" and "the asshole inner voice that's always trying to fuck shit up" are too wordy.