I just recalled an article I read in Chicago’s Red Eye newspaper last year. This article announced that 30% of Chicagoans would prefer to give up sex for a year rather than their cell phones.

Wait, huh? 30% of Chicagoans would prefer to give up sex for a year rather than their cell phones! At first I thought, wow, that’s nuts!!  But then I though, maybe I would do that, too. My blackberry seems so essential…I schedule all my appointments on it, I have all my phone numbers, I can be efficient and make calls while I’m taking the bus to work, and I can check my email and respond to messages! It’s how I stay in touch, and right now that seems more important than sex, so maybe I do agree with those 30% of Chicagoans.

Even if we take the choice of sex out of the picture, I know that I am addicted to my cell phone, even though it is incredibly useful and helps me live more efficiently. I know this because there are times when I am looking down at my cell phone every couple minutes to see if I have a message EVEN WHEN I am in the middle of something else.

Dr. Judith Wright defines a soft addiction as a seemingly harmless habit that when overdone robs us of time, energy and money. Well, that is true. Checking my blackberry is not harmful as running out into the middle of the street in front of a car, but, if I were to add up the seconds spent compulsively checking, and the anxiety it creates, it is definitely not something I want and does feel like it does harm to my well-being. I have taken steps to identify what I’m feeling and what I’m really needing when I want to check my phone. Dr. Judith Wright calls these the underlying feelings or “hungers’ that drive us to  do these compulsive habits. Sometimes I’m looking to make sure that I’m loved (see if someone I care about has called me), and sometimes it’s just my wanting to mattter, to get my work done so efficiently that I will feel valuable. I know there are the other reasons that lie within the chemicals releasing in my brain that keep me addicted, but it’s easier to change these patterns once you identify the deeper feeling or “hunger”.

What do you think?