GOD HELP ME, I AM A COMPUTERLIC!

MY NAME IS DICK WRIGHT, ALIAS DICKTHEBLOGSTER, AND  I HAVE AN ADDICTION.

...I AM A COMPUTERLIC!

THIS IS MY TESTIMONY:

It all started a couple years ago when I found an outlet for my compulsion to express myself by means of the written word.  I was easy prey for the intriguing world of Internet communications and a very appealing pimp-like concept known as Google. I was lured into the parlour of Lady Blogster who recognized me for the easy mark that I was and quickly sank her fangs into my unsuspecting soul.

Lady Blogster introduced me to the mysteries of web site creation made easy.  "You've always wanted to be a publisher?" she asked, adding..."No problem.  I'll make that happen for you."  And she did.  I was hooked, line and sinker.

Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't exactly led down the garden path by the conniving Lady.  It was more like being presented with an opportunity to indulge myself on a path of my own creation -- Wrights Lane.  Before long, my compulsion became a fixation gobbling up hundreds of hours of my my life and countless sleepless nights.  I felt helpless as I fell deeper and deeper into the blogging abyss.  My need to post on Wrights Lane was insatiable.  The urge to be prolific was overwhelming.  If I missed a day or two, I felt guilty.

I actually tried to get the monkey off my back by quitting at one point and was clean for 18 days, two hours and 47 seconds, before hopelessly tumbling off the wagon.

It became a question of who would crash first, me or my computer.  As it turned out, it was the computer that screamed an excruciating "tilt" a couple of days ago, too contaminated to carry out the demands that I was placing on it.  Internet Explorer, the very heart of my system, was in desperate need of a transplant and there was nothing I could do in the form of resuscitation but to rush it to the emergency ward at a local computer hospital.

"We'll fix her up for you," stated the friendly young technician as he cradled my disabled Dell tower in his arms.  "We'll observe it overnight and perform necessary surgery  first thing tomorrow.  I'll call you when it is ready...You should know up front, however, that we charge $75.00 an hour labour."

Seventy-five dollars an hour?  Are you kidding?  In all of my working days I was lucky to have made a third of that in an hour.  But I had no choice.  It was the life or death of an extension of myself that we were talking about.  "No problem.  Go ahead!" I responded, trying to regain composure.

The next difficult 24 hours were a revelation to me.  I immediately began to experience withdrawal symptoms.  I was lost.  I would go into my office/den and stare at my computer desk.  The anxiety of seeing a monitor, a printer, speakers and an idle mouse, just sitting there with no main frame tower to power them at my time of great need, was simply devestating. I would periodically wander back into the room and just sit there thinking about what used to be and how much I needed a blogging fix.  My body shook.  Strange muffled utterances came uncontrolled from deep within my heaving chest.

"Viranda", "dashboard", "settings", "layout", "edit", "view".

I was out of control.  It was cold-turkey at its worst.

Sitting there, staring off into space, the realization dawned:  I had unwittingly become an addict.  I threw my hands in the air and declared for the very first time, "God help me.  I am a computerlic!"

Relief came in the form of a telephone call.  The patient was ready for pick up.  I rushed out of the house without even putting on my coat, returning in seconds to retrieve car keys from the coat hanging in the front door closet.

Long story made short (?), my computer (shown in the above photo after emergency surgery), is now free of a multitude of contaminated programs and has been restored to health,  purring like a new-born kitten.  Finally, release!  How sweet it is!

I am not yet a "recovering" computerlic, although I am working on tempering the addiction.  I may never fully recover.  It is a day-to-day thing.

Meantime, I am forming a new support group -- CA (Computerlics Annonymous).  As we speak, I know there are fellow addicts struggling with the same decision long after midnight: "Should I continue pounding the keyboard, or should I turn this damn thing off and go to bed."  At times like this we need to be there for each other.