I’m convinced that everyone has an addiction, even if they don’t want to admit it. However, you have to admit that some addictions are more peculiar than the rest. I reached out to three awesome individuals who reveal their strange addictions and how a single habit can shape one’s life.
Senior Maxwell Palone’s addiction is kombucha. This addiction started with him wanting to be healthier by consuming more probiotics. Max no longer has such a symbiotic relationship with kombucha. He even went as far as to define what an addiction is. It is “something that provides relief in the short term that’s detrimental in the long run.” How profound. I’ve had kombucha before, and I wouldn’t say it’s addicting at all, but Max is a different breed. He drinks 1-2 kombuchas a day, which isn’t the worst thing ever. Max explains that he craves what he calls the “booch buzz.” I wondered, how bad can kombucha really be? Well, Max claims that it has become increasingly deleterious towards his health. “It’s gotten to the point where my tummy hurts constantly. My pee often comes out carbonated.” Don’t worry, I informed Max that pee can’t be carbonated. Max seems to think kombucha is worth it though. He jovially states, “Kombucha makes me feel alive.”
Next up, I spoke with Izzy Patterson, who is definitely a junior. Her strange addiction is chewing on plastic. This includes mechanical pencils, straws, plastic wrappers, and plastic in clothing tags. She grins deviously, “There’s not much plastic I won’t eat.” With other addictions, I could understand where the dopamine rush might come from, but with this one I needed further clarification. Izzy explains, “I do it because I just like it. It makes me extremely happy.” If that’s not self-love, I don’t know what is. Of course, the major downside with this is that Izzy’s teeth have all gotten filed down from all of that chewing. Her canines are totally flat. During my interview with her, she pointed out that she had some plastic lodged between her teeth.
Last up was senior August Mussler-Wright. His strange addiction is monkeys. More specifically, he just can’t stop thinking about monkeys. He states, “Every time I open my phone I think of monkeys. I have a whole camera roll of monkeys. When I was in Germany, there was a marmoset that I saw. It was really rare. I nearly passed out looking at it. I spent at least ten hours reading different wikipedia articles about different primates over the summer. I can tell you the whole family tree and I can tell you the difference between Gibbons and Macaques. Gibbons are one of the only monogamous primates.” He proceeded to show me some cute clips of monkeys, and I could totally understand his addiction to monkeys for a second. Somehow he even knew what type of monkey lives on the monkey mountain in China. Just like Izzy and Max, August likes thinking about monkeys because it fills him with happiness. How much could thinking about monkeys change your life? Well, apparently a lot. Thinking about monkeys “has changed my philosophy about the world. I no longer take people seriously. These adorable animals are way stupider than humans, yet they are living life much happier than any of us.” Shoot. Now, I kind of wish I was a monkey.
Clearly, addictions can have both positive and negative impacts on an individual’s life. I hope that everyone I interviewed knows how awesome they are, and that while our addictions fill up a part of our lives, they don’t define us.
